Summary

In “Lydia and Mendel,” the author recounts Lizzie’s parents’ history. Lydia’s parents came to America in 1947 from a displaced persons camp in Austria after the war, and “were so furious about the recent past” that they “came to America determined to forget their religion, which they blamed for the disaster that had all but destroyed European Jewry” (59). Meanwhile, Mendel Bultmann’s father was the son of Ukrainian immigrants and his mother was an American-born Jewish orphan. The Bultmanns back in eastern Europe were wiped out by the war. Lydia and Mendel met in university and became inseparable. Lizzie was conceived by accident while Lydia and Mendel were finishing their dissertations, and she was largely raised by babysitters and graduate students that they hired after becoming successful psychology professors. In the next section, titled “Sheila,” the author introduces Lizzie’s longtime and...