Thursday, July 18, 2013

Review of Walking In Her shoes

Below is a book review from the May 2013 issue of the Sturbridge Times Magazine, Page 11, about a daugter's quest for family information.


The mystery of mom.

Walking In Her Shoes
By Marylou Depeiza
AuthorHouse, 2011
Paperback, 156 pages
ISBN 978-142994617
List: $15.00 Amazon: $15.00


Book review by Richard Morchoe

As the saying goes, the past is an undiscovered country.  For Marylou Depeiza, that is so, but she did as much as anyone could to find it.  Her search for the family story, left untold at her mother’s death was a competent a piece of amateur detective craft.  Alas, even hard work can only take you so far.

Who we are and what we are is an obsession for many people. Ancestry.com is big business.  Harvard Professor Henry Louis Gates has a popular show, Finding Your Roots, where prominent people search for their background using documentary evidence and DNA information.  The company 23andme will, for a sample of saliva, tell you where your ancestors come from, if not their names and addresses.

Marylou wasn’t trying to find out she was a direct descendant of the Grand Duke of Ruritania.  Her goals were far more modest, though no less important for that.  Her book, Walking In Her Shoes, is a biographical account of life with her mother, Leola Williams.  The book is an intimate and loving portrayal of a woman who tenaciously kept a family fed, clothed and together no matter how little she had.  It is also chronicles the later life and decline of a strong woman and how it affected those she loved and loved her.

Walking In Her Shoes is a story of Boston from just before World War II through the post war era.  She has it pitch perfect.  The elegance that was Filenes is reflected as well as her mother’s meeting with Mayor Curley.  Marylou imagines her mom’s meeting with His honor.  It is as good as the dialogue of the mayor meeting his people in Edwin O’Connor’s roman a clef about Curley, The Last Hurrah.  One quibble, she has Curley speaking with an Irish accent he did not possess.  The mayor was second generation and spoke with a florid, stentorian voice, but not a bit of a brogue.

Filenes was a vision of middle class style and grace, but it was also part of the cultural patterns of the times.  Marylou notices her mother’s job as stock girl is not the equal of white women who work behind the perfume counter.  Leola brushes it off, but the contrast is stark.

For all that, Leola was a woman of mystery.  Her children never knew her husband and the circumstances of her marriage. About all that they knew was that he was killed in the World War II and she was a war widow.

Finality and closure are not complete even in families where the history is kept as far back as possible.  Roger, her brother found the military files on Leola’s husband, James Williams, through an online search.  Private Williams had been killed in the service of his country by a violent explosion in India. He had been part of an outfit building a road to China to circumvent the Japanese occupation.

But what of the relationship of Leola and James?  Marylou undertook a search of court records. She would find that her mom did not have a marriage made in heaven.  She got the details of James’ suit for divorce and Leola’s contesting of it. Their relationship was complicated to say the least.  She also saw the Veterans’ Administration records of the battle for mom’s rights as a widow.

If the marriage didn’t originate in paradise, the in-laws seemed to come from somewhere far south of it.  They fought Leola over benefits and she was even assaulted.  Still, Marylou wanted to know about the other side of the family.   She continued the detective work to no avail.

Marylou had uncovered a story that would be considered shocking from the point of view of middle class values.  Yet for all of Leola’s tangled life, the Williams household, as Marylou tells it, was no zone of dysfunction.  It chugged along through adversity with a strong personality at the helm.  

Searching for your history can be a minefield as Oedipus found out, but who among us could shield our eyes no matter how devastating the revelation?  Walking In Her Shoes is not a long book.  You will turn the pages quickly and regret that it ends so fast.

Marylou Depeiza is Boston born and bred.  A graduate of Boston State (now merged with UMass Boston), she has been an actress for over 20 years.  Wife and grandmother, this is her first book.  She is currently working on a murder mystery.

Marylou has an author page on Amazon at