Follow Here To Purchase You, Fascinating You

Author: Germaine Shames

ISBN: 978-0-9838612-0-1

 

The title sounds romantic like the song but a more accurate description of this novel, based on the life of real people, is heartbreaking and powerful. The song that later made its composer famous (the “Italian Cole Porter”) was originally titled Tu Solamente Tu (You Only You) but we find out later that the ballerina Margit Wolf was not this man’s only love. The novel is written primarily from her point of view and then at the end there are sections written from the point of view of her son, the child she gave up a career in dance to bear, raise (for a while) and do her best to protect. Before surviving all the worst  that the holocaust imposed on Jews in Europe, this woman was seduced, controlled and deceived by the maestro who pretended to marry her, imposed his will on her restricting her freedom to follow opportunities to be the great dancer she yearned to be ( she lived to dance) and then abandoned her after she went back to Hungary with their son to see her family and was unable to return to Italy. Nor did he save the son he claimed he loved so dearly that their separation was heart-wrenching to him. In fact once his son, as a grown man, did return to Italy he introduced the young man around as a nephew. This son was the only good thing that came of the so called romance that begins the novel and it is to his credit that he grew to be a far better man than his father and has striven to give his mother the credit and memorialization she deserves. 

The author, once a foreign correspondent, has the journalist’s gift for packing a lot of information into a few well chosen words. Between these covers the reader will be transported to Budapest, to Italy, to the backstage realities of the Comedias, and to the cold harsh countryside of Hungary patrolled by desperately cruel soldiers.  The book is not an easy read but is an important read, reminding the reader of both the depths and the heights of human nature. I highly recommend  You Fascinating You  to serious readers as well as  to bookclubs, anyone interested in pondering and discussing the hidden and often misunderstood layers upon layers of underlying motivation for all kinds of desperate actions whether  loving or hateful, helpful or hurtful.



Follow Here To Purchase You, Fascinating You