Author: Rebecca Daniels
Publisher:Sunbury Press
ISBN: 978-1620061145

Keeping the Lights on for Ike is not only a memoir and a love story, but a look at history through the eyes of someone who was actually there. I feel like this book could also have been titled something like The Untold Story of a Support Soldier, because it really gave me the feeling of being right there during the War to End All Wars, as they called it back then. But, let me sum up the contents in a more succinct manner. 

Rebecca Daniels' writes the story of her parents, Alec and Mary Daniels who met in college and married just before America joined World War II in the year 1941. Of course, being a young, able-bodied man and a member of the ROTC, Alec was quickly drafted into the war and sent overseas to several different posts to work as a Utilities Engineer, a very important position that ensured the safety of the soldiers in combat. Over the course of the three years that the couple was separated, Alec and Mary corresponded through letters. After her husband's return to America, Mary then held onto the letters for 65 years until her death. 

Rebecca included many of the letters in this memoir and it is an absolutely unrivaled treat to read them along with her commentary on what happened to her parents during the war. The added details of the letters (and the stunning black and white photographs that are also included) make this memoir come alive in your hands. While reading, you can practically feel Mary's despair at being separated from her husband and Alec's determination to do his job well despite his loneliness for home. This is a gorgeous story that is well executed by Rebecca Daniels' capable authorial hand. It must have been a real honor for her to finally write down her parent's story, and it shows in the tender and loving way that she wrote this memoir. I loved the story of Rebecca’s parents and highly recommend it! 

Rebecca Daniels has been a university professor for many years who has also simultaneously had a vital creative career in the theatre. Throughout her career, her work has always been a mix of performance, teaching, and her own writing. Her groundbreaking book on women directors and the effects of gender on their work is currently still in print [Women Stage Directors Speak: Exploring the Effects of Gender on Their Work, McFarland, 1996], and she has been published in several theatre-related professional journals over the years as well. After her retirement in the summer of 2015, she was finally able to focus all her energies on her newest book, Keeping the Lights on for Ike, based on her father's letters home from Europe during WWII.