Title: The gypsy in me
First published: 1997
Description: By the time he turned fifty, Ted Simon had seen a great deal of the world - even circled the globe by motorcycle. But eastern Europe was an area he had never explored. It resonated in his history, however: His mother was German; his father, who vanished when Simon was five, was a Romanian Jew. Simon became curious about his heritage only after his mother died in 1992. He then conceived the idea of traveling between the two poles of his legacy - through Germany, Poland, Russia, Ukraine, and Romania - seeking to understand more about this turbulent region and more about his parents, whose brief and explosive marriage arose from their attempt to escape their cultural pasts.

Insightful, humorous, and often moving, The Gypsy in Me vividly recounts Simon's 1,500-mile journey. Covering much of the trip on foot, Simon gets an up-close and personal entree into the lives of these around him, and also learns unexpected lessons about his physical limitations. In the former East Germany he stays with a family longing for the lost security of Communism; in Russia he finds himself beset by entrepreneurs eager to do business American-style. He befriends a Russian colonel and his family who are struggling to keep up propriety and comfort when the economy is so bad they have to grow their own food. In Ukraine, far from any tourist spots, he is adopted by a rural family and welcomed with a heartwarming Orthodox church service.

In Romania he is intrigued by the Gypsy culture, and he miraculously locates a man who knew his grandfather and gives him clues to his family's past. Everywhere he goes, the specter of history lingers: in the last standing buildings of a Russian ghetto long purged of its Jewish population; in Polish towns reclaimed from Germany after World War II (where, ironically, prosperity comes through the tourism of nostalgic Germans who used to live there).

Writing with wit, grace, and a finely attuned sensitivity, Simon brings out the profound aspects of traveling into the unknown. He is also laugh-out-loud funny, bringing a wry and often self-deprecating humor to stories of being chased by a jealous Russian bull, discovering that Romanian restaurants serve nothing but pork cutlet, and encountering, in Ukraine, the Worst Toilet in the World. The Gypsy in Me is an enlightening, colorful ramble across eastern Europe that combines first-rate travel writing with reflections on nationalism and prejudice, changing ways of life, the ties of people to the land, and the influence of history. It is a journey through time and culture as well as through place.
Subjects: Travel, Description and travel, Fathers and sons, Post-communism, europe, central, Post-communism, europe, eastern, Jewish families, Journeys
Places: Eastern Europe
People: Ted Simon
LC classification: DJK19 .S56 1997