Confession may be good for the soul, but confessional writing may not be good reading unless the penitent is blessed, as is the author of [Till the Break of Day, Memories: 1939–1942] remarkable document, with an understanding of life's absurdities, a sense of the dramatic, and a felicitous talent for precise, vivid description. Because [Maia Wojciechowska has] these qualities, her reminiscences of a turbulent adolescence during the Second World War are both intensely personal and yet recognizable as a universal statement on the tragicomic conditions which are a necessary part of maturation. The Foreword, comparing the writing of autobiography to the making of a movie, makes use of a particularly apt analogy, for the narrative techniques—employing flashbacks and montages of impressionistic detail—suggest contemporary cinematography. And only a wide screen with stereophonic sound would be appropriate for a heroine who, in three short years, conducted a personal war...