Burnt Toast

"What happens to a woman who loses her name? This is one of the many questions Nancy Gerber asks about her maternal grandmother, the focus of her compassionate and moving memoir, Burnt Toast. It is an account of the profound and irreparable loss experienced by immigrants as they leave their home, parents, mother tongue-and even name-behind. With honesty, beauty, and humanity, Gerber details the strong bond forged between grandmother and granddaughter, who quietly connect through food, embroidery, their independent spirits, and an unspoken belief in each other. Ultimately, the book memorializes not only a portrait of Gerber's grandmother, but also many facets of the Jewish immigrant experience." -Ellen Sherman, author of Into the Attic

"What does it mean not to carry your given name into your life in a new land? What does it do to the generations after to have no stories that were told of the lives left behind? How does this granddaughter make stories out of her deep and anguished love for this elder who didn't know or remember the time and place of her birth and childhood, truncated by war, pogroms, poverty and necessity? Nancy Gerber's Burnt Toast: A Memoir of My Immigrant Grandmother, sets before us a scene of memories she has made out of those lost to the generations before her who came from that geopolitical, mythical Pale of Settlement which has been, and remains, the site of historical traumas we must come to know." - Frances Bartkowski, author of An Afterlife

"Burnt Toast is a moving journey through time as Nancy Gerber bears witness to her grandmother's unspoken trauma. Beginning with a young girl's survival of a deadly pogrom and her solo trip across the ocean, this memoir feels both personal and universal. Mining the rich soil beneath her grandmother's words, Gerber unearths the deep loss and abiding love that was long ago buried. She validates her grandmother, as well as any of us whose voices have been silenced. She clears a path toward "asylum from the ghosts of our past," and provides an emotional and thought-provoking read, not to be missed. - Lisa A. Sturm, author of Echoed in My Bones

"In this heartfelt memoir, Nancy Gerber gives voice to the complexities of the immigrant experience: ruptures sustained, questions unanswered, and traumas borne across generations. Her vignettes glow with pathos, honesty, and the particular stoic melancholy of the American Jewish refugee." - Rabbi Danny Moss, Temple Beth Tikvah