Dream Homes: From Cairo to Katrina, an Exile's Journey Book

This is a very well-written memoir by an author that I actually knew - was somewhat friendly with - at Brooklyn College back in the 70s! I was so happy to read that after the tumult of the 70s-80s, which I also experienced, Joyce forged a wonderful life for herself, earning a doctorate from an Ivy and going on to a multi-decade career teaching writing and feminist topics on the college level!

There are some similarities in our backgrounds; both of us are from families that emigrated to the US in the post-war period. We were both expected to marry, have kids, and become housewives - and both of us obviously "rebelled" as far as our families were concerned. Of course, in the 60s and 70s, there was a social revolution occurring, and the idea was that women could have the same experiences and opportunities as men. Joyce laid out a career path for herself and followed it - did not back down and kept trying.

My own response to the demands of life - of the world of unending responsibility/career - was, from as far back as I can remember, to essentially reject it in favor of reading, writing, drawing, and so forth. Thus, the choices I made, were consistent with this wish to have a pleasant life without actually being drawn into the world of "adult responsibilities." Joyce instead embraced the challenge of pursuing graduate study and then becoming a valued teacher, concerned about her students, and so forth. So, although there were similarities to our backgrounds to some extent, Joyce persevered and created a wonderful life for herself - whereas the price I paid, was about three decades of office work so that I could have the leisure to pursue my "real life" of reading, going to museums, film festival films, concerts, meeting friends, going on walking tours, and so forth.

On the other hand, even if I did spend my entire working life as an office worker, rather than have a career, choosing this way of making a living rather than having a career was consistent with my preference from the time I was a child, when I disliked the idea of even finishing elementary school, much less going on to junior high school, high school or college. I had no interest in any of the adult "responsible" pathways of life, work, school, having kids - I was only interested in reading, writing poems/stories, drawing, and imagining different worlds.

Instead, Joyce struggled and succeeded, and put the facets of her life together - gaining insights and conveying knowledge to others. I remember Joyce as a bright-eyed young woman with a warm smile and short curly hair, vaguely remember visiting her at her apartment in Brooklyn, where she told me about her Egyptian-Jewish background. The rest is a blur - we probably had met taking a class at Brooklyn College, but I can't remember the details.

This is an endlessly interesting memoir - it includes so many fascinating profiles of relations, the social milieu in Egypt her extended family left, the pathways the relations took in the New World. It's wonderfully readable!