Fascinating, funny, Helga.

You're Not From Around Here, Are You?
Reminiscences 

by Helga Stipa Madland

Review

Fascinating, funny, Helga.

A witty and sometimes fascinating book perfectly subtitled, 'Reminiscences', it is a reflection of the more interesting bits that have gone into making Helga Stipa Madland.

As a story I found there was a lot to like, and a fair bit that I found wearing. Let me say at once that if you are thinking to yourself, "Oh, no, my life is boring enough, why would I want to read about someone else's?" - you may well be wrong. Helga (I can't call her Mrs Madland, not after reading this; I know her far too well!) has a good sense of humour and a great sense of what works as drama, and has selected all her most interesting and funniest memories. Historians in particular will find the contemporaneous anecdotes to be a goldmine of details of life in wartime and post-war Germany, and through the decades of the fifties and sixties in America.
For me, the biggest problem was that the entire book is dreadfully one-paced. Not boring, I said; one-paced. This makes it quite challenging to read as if it were a novel, or even a professional biography. However, I do feel that if one were to dip into it, reading a dozen pages or a score of them as the mood took one, this would not matter.
Helga's anecdotes are funny, often wickedly observant of human nature (especially her own, a very commendable quality), unflinchingly honest, and frequently make one stop and think. The result is highly entertaining.
This is a great book for reading in short stretches, because Helga makes a clear enough impression for the reader not to forget her, so that one can come back after a few days, a week, or a month, and pick up just where one left off.

The editing is not quite professional, but it's close. Too much polishing according to the standard rules would erase Helga's 'not-from-around-here' accent, which would damage the book. I may not always like Helga, but I have to admire her and salute her courage - not least in publishing this brave memoir. I thank Helga for allowing me the opportunity to get to know her at no charge; this review is my own honest opinion. I recommend the book to readers interested in human nature and in the history of us.