Synopsis
In the early 1920s, two teen-agers immigrated to New York City from Poland. They met, married, and raised three boys during the Great Depression. I am Bernard, the eldest son, and this book depicts the first twenty-six years of my life. Despite minimal income, our parents provided us with food, clothing, and shelter. They modeled desirable characteristics for us: ambition, self-education, charitable work, and persistence in achieving goals. However, these hard-working immigrants had little time, energy, or knowledge of children's needs. They asked no questions about my friends, life in school, or feelings. My anxious mother saw the world as a dangerous place. My father basically ignored me except to criticize, but never spent time educating me. When children are denied meaningful attention from their parents, they can become narcissists, longing to be the center of attention. Because I was good-looking, I became an object of admiration. A girl I met in my class once exhibited me to her mother as a "trophy" classmate. Possessed of a quick wit and verbal skills, I became an entertainer. However, I still felt ill at ease in meeting new people, and I worried about the impression I was making. Focused inward, I was often incapable of seeing others. I was hypersensitive to criticism from others, but, paradoxically, imitated my father's criticalness in making fun of others if it brought me attention. As a physically late maturer physically, I developed a sense of inferiority and inadequacy. Friends might have taken up the slack to some extent, but our parents moved 7 times in the first 8 years of my life, searching for ever- cheaper rentals. I had to adjust constantly to new classmates, teachers, and environments, while my parents were unaware of the stress these moves caused. In 1940, the moves stopped for a decade when the family moved near a utopia in the Bronx, the socialist United Workers Cooperative Colony, occupied by 2,500 idealistic needle-trade workers and families. I joined a club of young socialists, but fell briefly into disfavor when my comrades designated me at age eleven, year-old “a traitor to the working class” for opposing the Soviet- German Nonaggression Pact of 1939. My story is played out against a background of America’s political and social history. Each chapter of the book begins with a description of political events, followed by personal experiences from the 1930s to 1950s. After obtaining my PhD in 1954, I was still eligible for the draft. I applied for a commission in the army as a psychologist. To my surprise, an organization I had joined during World War II turned up on my questionnaire as a "subversive" organization, though my membership consisted of playing on the basketball team and collecting fats, newspapers, and scrap iron for the war effort. My application was denied, yet for unknown reasons I was not drafted. My life improved in early adulthood. Obtaining a PhD and marriage added stability and a modicum of confidence. At first glance, it seemed a most improbable marriage. She had great interpersonal skills and numerous friendships of both sexes. Indeed, she had been courted by at least a half dozen suitors. Many years later, a friend described us as a "balloon" and a "sandbag." She was a "sophisticated" balloon, well traveled, full of creative ideas and initiatives, broadening my view of the world. I was the sandbag, knowledgeable and realistic, providing stability and a solid anchor. At ages 26 and 23 respectively, my wife, Nelly (working on her PhD), and I were full of hope for success in our professional careers. We were shocked therefore to discover that episodes of anti-Semitism and misogyny awaited us. These struggles are described in the second and final volume of the memoirs, entitled Memoirs of a Professional Malcontent: A History of My America, 1956-2013.
À propos de l?auteur
Bernard I. Murstein, PhD, an internationally known psychologist-historian, held an endowed chair at Connecticut College, Fulbright Chair at the Université of Louvain, was designated a 20th Century Distinguished Psychologist by Papeles Psicologos del Colegio of Spain. He was elected Fellow of three American Psychological Association divisions, president of the Society of Personality Assessment, and Diplomate, American Board of Professional Psychology. He has written 10 books among 165 publications. Several books have been the Behavioral Sciences Book Service Main Selection for the Month; some were translated into Portuguese and French. He has lectured in the United States, Canada, England, France, Sweden, Norway, Russia, Belgium, Greece, Spain, and Morocco, and been interviewed on national TV programs (Phil Donahue Show) and by numerous newspapers. The National Institute of Mental Health funded the research for his first book, Theory and Research in Projective Techniques. The book was named one of the 50 outstanding books in psychology. From 1960 to 1995, he researched marital choice, developed his “Stimulus-Value-Role Theory of Marital Choice resulting in 5 books on marriage and the designation, "America's principal theoretician in mate selection.” Included in this series of books was his history of love, sex, and marriage from the ancient Hebrews to the present day, and including Africa, China, and Japan. He became interested in the stock market in the 1970s noting, “like Freud, my libido now switched from love to the accumulation of money.” In 1982 he obtained a grant to work as a research analyst of stocks at the Hartford National Bank during his sabbatical year. One result was his writing a book, Getting Psyched for Wall Street: A Rational Approach to an Irrational Market, showing how a nonprofessional can outperform professionals. His latest book, When Seltzer was Two Cents Glass: A History of America and Me: 1929-1955, will appear in March of 2013. The second volume, Memoirs of a Professional Malcontent: A History of My America, 1955-2013, is forthcoming. A recently completed dictionary, Murstein's Socially and Politically Incorrect Dictionary, will be published shortly thereafter. He has been married for almost 60 years to Nelly K. Murstein, Hanna Hafkesbrink Professor of French Literature, emeritus. Both taught at Connecticut College for many decades live in Waterford, Connecticut and have two daughters and three granddaughters.
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