The author was confronted by an “explosion of emotions” as she neared retirement. She writes, “It was if I had been sitting on a volcano all my life, and it had erupted.” She began to feverishly honor her mother’s haunting loss of many family members during the Holocaust. She also started to grapple with the epigenetic roots of her own inherited, intergenerational despair through the medium of her prose, poetry, painting, digital photo collage, and sculpture. Campbell felt she was “giving them back their identity and their dignity, giving them a voice.” The artwork speaks to pain and loss but also displays the joy and exuberance of her ancestors’ lives before the fascist specter and ravages of war claimed them.

Campbell’s starkly evocative, sensory work begs to be savored. It is rich with well-defined, sweeping lines, textures, and colors. Prominent are the themes of “loss and regeneration—a life spirit which emerges from the devastation of the past.” Campbell invites the reader to witness her creative journey and to grasp both the historical and contemporary implications of lives cut short due to anti-Semitism, racism, and ultra-nationalist fervor. She created the artwork first and shared it with the world in a solo multimedia exhibition in 2005 called Whispers Across Time. She felt compelled to write about her family in 2018. and this stunning yet tender volume is the synthesis of the two cathartic projects. It is a compelling addition to the literature of the Holocaust. Viewers will feel the taut, passionate tangle of emotion that spurred Campbell’s grand flow of artistry as they page through the colorful spreads.

A 2019 Eric Hoffer Book Award da Vinci Eye winner

RECOMMENDED by the US Review

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