My Two Wars - Hardcover

Thomsen, Moritz

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 188364206X ISBN 13: 9781883642068

Publisher: Steerforth, 1998

Synopsis

THERE ARE THOSE who consider the little-known Moritz Thomsen one of the best American writers of the century," said the Washington Post in reviewing My Two Wars. Thomsen here describes the two great battles in his life – one against his rich, tyrannical father; the other against German pilots and anti-aircraft gunners in 1943 and 1944. Thomsen had an abiding hatred for his father, and with this portrait of the man he has given us one of literature’s true monsters. "Rarely has the similarity between war and family been as clearly drawn as it is in this scathing unblinking memoir," said Kirkus in its starred review of the book. "Thomsen’s writing about the war, both philosophical and descriptive, is stunning" said the Post.

About this title

Review

Moritz Thomsen was born into a wealthy American family in Hollywood in 1915, but spent the last decades of his life living a mong the poor in Ecuador. He became known as a good writer with a small and devoted following. He passed away in 1993, but left behind this moving autobiography which focuses on the two colossal struggles of his life: one against a tyrannical father while seeking to escape his family and become a writer; the other against Hitler's Germany while serving as a bombardier on a B-17 of the fabled Eight Air Force. My Two Wars is an unusual and remarkable book, very much the reflection of an irascible but oddly charming man.

"I read My Two Wars in an elegiac mood. It's sad to think it's the last new work to be read by Moritz Thomsen... I've come away from each of his other four books feeling exhilarated -- not because of what happens in them, but because the writing is so good." -- Larry McMurtry

From the Back Cover

Moritz Thomsen's My Two Wars describes the great battles in his life - one against a rich, tyrannical father; the other against anti-aircraft gunners over Germany in 1943 and 1944. Thomsen was a gifted and original writer and a genuine American rebel. In his late-forties, he cast his lot with the poor, joined the Peace Corps, and was sent to Ecuador where he lived as an expatriate for the next twenty-eight years and chronicled his life in four remarkable books that have been compared with the work of Thoreau and Joseph Conrad. My Two Wars was completed shortly before Thomsen's death, and with it he concluded the story of his unusual life. In this final book he returns to his youth growing up in a wealthy Seattle household with the father he despised, and goes off to the war in Europe as a bombardier with the Eighth Air Force. Thomsen's writing about the war evokes Joseph Heller's famous novel in its poignancy and hilarity, and in his introduction Page Stegner calls it "the best narrative account ever written of an imperfect and fragile human soul caught up in the air war over Germany". But it is Thomsen's other war - his lifelong and monumental battle with his father - which begins and ends the book and makes My Two Wars one of the most outrageous and memorable father-andson stories ever told. Even late in his life, long after his father's death, Thomsen can lament: "I begin to write about him and find my body trembling with fifty year old angers. Old emotions still cramp my fingers; old injustices still march through my dreams".

About this edition

• Publisher: Steerforth
• Publication date: 1998
• ISBN 10: 188364206X
• ISBN 13: 9781883642068
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 317