I have reviewed Fatherless, Fearless, Female – A Memoir by Mary Charity Kruger Stein for Reader’s Favorite.
Being born as an illegitimate daughter to a woman who was way ahead of her time, put Mary Charity in a complex position. As much as she wanted a father, her mother did not wish to be married. Finally, she accepted her reality and vowed to not let her own child, Billy, be raised without a father. However, fate intervened and she found herself a widow at an early age. Along with an unbearable emotional trauma, his death brought financial troubles in her life.
I never met my father. My mother told me he came to the hospital the day I was born and said, “She’s not mine; I take no responsibility for her.” I don’t remember how old I was when I found out I was a fatherless child, but it galled.
– Fatherless, Fearless, Female – A Memoir by Mary Charity Kruger Stein
Reassessing her life in the US, she decided to move to another country to build a better life for her son. Once again, destiny played a vital role and she found herself in the arms of a man named Issac. At the time, though, she did not know that he would bring both immense love and inconceivable heartache. In her memoir, Fatherless, Fearless, Female, Mary Charity Kruger Stein has brought forth a tangled web of beliefs, raw emotions, ideologies, and political movements.
Forcing the words past a huge obstruction in my throat, I said, “Today in the orchard Ernie picked up a wormy apple and told me, ‘You’re rotten to the core, just like your mom. No one wants you, ’cause you’re so rotten!”
Fatherless, Fearless, Female – A Memoir by Mary Charity Kruger Stein
Mary Charity’s rise from a stripper, who was forced to do things she wasn’t comfortable with, to a reputed teacher is an inspiration. Fatherless, Fearless, Female is not just about a woman’s hope to raise her son with a father. In reality, this memoir is a treasure of information in the words of a survivor of those crucial times. Mary hooks the audience with whirlwind romance, the fad of open marriages, hardships, and then, without any warning, throws them right in the middle of the budget crisis in New York, riots as a result of the power struggle in Iran among other major events of those perilous times. Wanderlusts would have a field day with her travel stories of Athens, Crete, Santorini, Istanbul, and many other stunning places.
At Erzurum we stopped to try to get a real hotel so we could bathe and wash out some clothes and got caught in the Ramadan fasting cycle without even a crust of bread the first day. I finally told Donnie, “If Iran is like TUrkey, the same hassles day in and day out, I think I will have had enough.”
– Fatherless, Fearless, Female – A Memoir by Mary Charity Kruger Stein
By the end of the memoir, readers would find a newfound inspiration to face life’s turmoils and knowledge on numerous significant historic events. Fatherless, Fearless, Female – A Memoir by Mary Charity Kruger Stein is perfect for readers with an interest in history, language, life-changing events, and an emotional roller-coaster. I highly recommend this memoir.
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