Starting in the Polish city of Krakow in 1890, this memoir spans over a hundred years, four continents and five generations. Mosaic is Diane Armstrong’s moving account of her remarkable and resilient family.
This story begins when Daniel Baldinger divorces the wife he loves because she cannot bear children. Believing that “a man must have sons to say Kaddish for him when he dies,” he marries a much younger woman, and by 1913, Daniel and his second wife Lieba have eleven children, including six sons. Armstrong has created a richly textured portrait that follows the Baldinger children’s lives down the decades, through the terrifying years of the Holocaust, to the present.
Mosaic is the story of the eternal dance of the generations, the mystery of survival, and the legacy of the past. It’s the story of ordinary people caught in extraordinary circumstances and of one woman’s journey to reclaim her heritage.
Mosaic was included by Barnes & Noble in its ‘Discover Great New Writers’ programme and was selected by Amazon.com as one of the top ten memoirs of 2001.
Read a sample chapter from Mosaic at Barnes and Noble