You Are Not Like Other Mothers

- Blurb -

As a young woman, Else made two promises to herself: to live life to the fullest, and to have a child with every man she loves. So here, too, are the stories of Fritz, Hans, and Erich - husbands, companions, lovers, and emissaries of a world in which men repeatedly prove themselves inadequate. Here are the stories of Peter, Bettina, and Angelika, Else' s three children. Here, too, is World War I, and then the roaring twenties - that prolonged orgy of concerts, plays, cabarets, and parties. Here are the ominous 1930s and the advent of Nazism, the dreadful racial laws, and, for Else, a Jew, exile in Bulgaria. But these dark years are also a time of experimentation, during which Else and her coevals explore alternative modes of interpersonal relationships. Here is a cast of vivid secondary characters - dreamers and intellectuals, artists and agitators. All these stories and their various players are held together by the forceful figure of a woman who is larger than life. But the indomitable Else will make a most human mistake when she tries to hide the real extent of the Nazi tragedy from her children, and instead of protecting them she brings disaster down upon her family.