What inspired you to write your memoir?
My brother (then twelve), sister (then 9), and me (then 8), heard our mother’s screams (she was then 32 and a part-time secretary at an animal hospital) and we ran from our bedrooms that morning only to find our father had died from an aortic aneurysm caused by (we found out later) a horrific truck accident he was in 8 months before. I am the youngest and I wrote The Widow’s Son from my brother’s perspective to better understand his point of view on the experience of being forced into the role, at age 12, as the new man of the house, to help keep us together as our mother struggled financially to keep us in our neighborhood.
About your Book:
Enjoy the music, politics, fashion, televison and movie fare of the 1960s. Did you know that 2 days before the blizzard of 1967 that brought the Midwest to a halt, it was a balmy 65 degrees? Or that Wild Thing by the Troggs kicked the Beatle’s Paperback Writer off the top of the pop charts? Or that Gomer Pyle USMC replaced the Dick Van Dyke Show? These details unique to 1966 and 1967 also include the Apollo 1 disaster, what young men did to avoid the draft and Vietnam, and President Johnson’s conclusion in 1966 that the Vietnam War had been as good as won. All of this incredible history, accurately researched and woven into this incredible story without a seam, presents a historic backdrop for a powerful tale of survival – and the detemination of a neighborhood filled with beloved nuts and bolts who go beyond the call to save a broken family. And it all begins with these words of a child’s lament – When I hear the news I want to jump on the dining room clock and make time go backwards . . .
Based on the real life loss of the author’s father, Bruce Steinberg brings his passionate tale home as told through the eyes of his oldest brother – a child on the cusp of manhood who does not easily take to wearing the crown of New Man of the House.
The moment 12-year-old Jeremy Rosenberg witnesses his father’s death, Jeremy loses the world he assumed would last forever. With a young brother expecting their father to yet come home, a sister blaming herself, and a mother falling toward isolation, Jeremy is sent fatherless into the world just as he enters adolescence. Beautifully and memorably set in mid-1960s Chicago suburbia, The Widow’s Son is launched on a devastating moment. But this tale of misguided efforts and accidental triumphs of children forced into adult emotions creates a humorous, poignant novel. The reader’s laughter and tears are sure to flow together to the last page as Jeremy battles to make his family into a family once again.
How did you decide how to publish your book and where is it published through:
The Widow’s Son won a writing competition at a writers conference in Milwaukee, WI and thereby earned publication with a very small press in hard cover and trade paperback. The print editionc sales did fine for a small press, but I got my rights back in 2002, and the publisher went out of business in 2004. I re-issued The Widow’s Son on my own as an eBook through Amazon.com’s KDP select program in 2011.
How do you see writing a Memoir as different from writing other genres of books?
The research is more painstaking, both in time and commitment as well as on the author’s emotions. Conversations cannot be remembered exactly from long-ago events, but you try to be true to the theme and the reality.
Author Bio:
Bruce Steinberg is an attorney, married with one child, who has written freelance for Chicago-area newspapers and writes a human-insterest column for the monthly print magazine Silent Sports. In addition to The Widow’s Son, Bruce’s other titles include River Ghosts (nom de plume – BR Robb – a Kirkus star review literary mystery in hard cover, large print, and eBook published by Cengage / Thomson-West) which is also an audio book voiced by Emmy-winning actor and writer Craig J. Harris at Cerny American Studios in Chicago. My Occasional Torment (about husbands, of course) (nom de plume Bee Robb, published by Cengage / Thomson West in hard cover, as well as an eBook edition that was a best-seller in Summer / Fall of 2012). Bruce also adapted My Occasional Torment into a stage play which sold out its performances in a 162-seat theater in Naperville, Illinois. Also, An Assassinated Man as an eBook (nom de plume BR Robb).
Website(s)
Link To Book On Amazon
Link to Book on Barnes and Noble
I was there when Bruce won 1st place for A Widow’s Son. The book is excellent, very interesting, and definitely deserved 1st place.