Reviews of Invisible Ink
BOOKLIFE PRIZE, Critics report. (April 2022)
INVISIBLE INK a family memoir
Assessment:
Plot/Idea: Leigh has written an incredible historical and familial account of the interconnected experiences of her family throughout the years leading up to, including, and directly following World War II. Intertwining the lives of her relatives, she has presented a piece of living history that breathes to life hundreds of letters, books, and other forms of prose written during that time by her family members. This book not only explores the delicate ties between family, but also the experience of unrequited love, coping with homosexuality during a time it was at best considered a mental illness, along with anti Semitism, and trying to survive one of the most difficult times in history. Written with honestly, love, and a desire to reveal even ugly truths, Leigh has cemented her family's important and fascinating history through this literary gem.
Prose: Where Leigh excels is in her descriptions of feeling, especially regarding Edith's relationship with the piano. She also brings to life Ralph, a lovable, depressed, pained cynic who is trying to accept his gay identity. Overall, it is very pleasant to read, and Leigh is an excellent storyteller.
Originality: Leigh has successfully taken on the daunting task of sifting through countless pieces of writing to formulate this story. She has done a wonderful job of formulating a coherent narrative from snippets of history, glueing it together with historical context. Although Holocaust narratives are not uncommon, Leigh's rings with a special uniqueness due not only to how the story came about through letters and manuscripts, but also the contents therein. Exploring an unlikely love affair between a gay man and a female pianist, Leigh looks into the confusion of love, survival, and family with an objective, gentle, and honest eye.
INVISIBLE INK a family memoir
Assessment:
Plot/Idea: Leigh has written an incredible historical and familial account of the interconnected experiences of her family throughout the years leading up to, including, and directly following World War II. Intertwining the lives of her relatives, she has presented a piece of living history that breathes to life hundreds of letters, books, and other forms of prose written during that time by her family members. This book not only explores the delicate ties between family, but also the experience of unrequited love, coping with homosexuality during a time it was at best considered a mental illness, along with anti Semitism, and trying to survive one of the most difficult times in history. Written with honestly, love, and a desire to reveal even ugly truths, Leigh has cemented her family's important and fascinating history through this literary gem.
Prose: Where Leigh excels is in her descriptions of feeling, especially regarding Edith's relationship with the piano. She also brings to life Ralph, a lovable, depressed, pained cynic who is trying to accept his gay identity. Overall, it is very pleasant to read, and Leigh is an excellent storyteller.
Originality: Leigh has successfully taken on the daunting task of sifting through countless pieces of writing to formulate this story. She has done a wonderful job of formulating a coherent narrative from snippets of history, glueing it together with historical context. Although Holocaust narratives are not uncommon, Leigh's rings with a special uniqueness due not only to how the story came about through letters and manuscripts, but also the contents therein. Exploring an unlikely love affair between a gay man and a female pianist, Leigh looks into the confusion of love, survival, and family with an objective, gentle, and honest eye.
By Janet Weston.The Journal of the Association of Jewish Refugees July 1st 2021.
Who could have imagined that piano lessons in Paris would lead to a wartime romance by letters involving several countries and end with a family life centred round Trinity College, Cambridge? More was of course going on below the surface. Author Martha Leigh has pieced together the intriguing story of her gifted parents. Ralph was a brilliantly clever but poor Jew from London’s East End and Edith from a bourgeois central European family whose existence was threatened by the Nazis and Soviet rule.
Edith was born in the cultured city of Czernowitz, then the farthest eastern outpost of the Austro-Hungarian empire, and went to Vienna to study for a music diploma for six years. She led an ascetic, solitary life until moving to Paris for more training, enjoying a wealth of musical and social opportunities. Here she gave Ralph music tuition while he was at the Sorbonne researching a thesis on Jean-Jacques Rousseau.
While Ralph was home for the holidays, war broke out and he was unable to return. The couple always hoped to meet up but ended up keeping a correspondence through thick and thin. Letters were vetted by the censor, sometimes taking months to arrive. He was affected by childhood tragedy and a secret that burdened him for most of his life. Edith stayed on in France but with the German invasion life became increasingly precarious. So she fled to stay with her brother Reinhold and his wife Fa, both doctors in Bussières, near Lyon.
When this became unsafe Edith had a dangerous and tricky escape into Switzerland where despite internment
and restrictions she continued her concert pianist activities. Reinhold joined General de Gaulle’s Free French forces and had a distinguished career in anaesthetics, despite initial resistance from French surgeons. His bravery shines through, particularly his daring and difficult rescue of his mother, also called Martha who had miraculously survived the war – despite great privations – from Soviet life in Czernowitz.
Eventually Edith came to England and the couple married in July 1945. Despite proving impractical in household affairs, she combined a musical career with bringing up two children, John born nine months after the wedding and the author in 1954. By then the couple were living in Cambridge where Ralph – a distinguished linguist – was a Fellow
of Trinity College. Edith gave concerts, mainly in Switzerland, before her early death in 1972. As Professor of French
at Cambridge and visiting Professor at the Sorbonne, Ralph survived his wife by 15 years, being awarded a CBE at Buckingham Palace and the Légion d’honneur from France. When he died, he left behind a legacy of 49 volumes on Rousseau’s correspondence.
The author is to be congratulated on piecing together the story from a large family archive and her research, including visiting her mother’s birthplace now in the Ukraine. She is very good at social history and describing European turmoil during the war and the legacies the conflict left on her family. She also shows insight in exploring her parents’ feelings and the difficulties they faced throughout their lives.
Who could have imagined that piano lessons in Paris would lead to a wartime romance by letters involving several countries and end with a family life centred round Trinity College, Cambridge? More was of course going on below the surface. Author Martha Leigh has pieced together the intriguing story of her gifted parents. Ralph was a brilliantly clever but poor Jew from London’s East End and Edith from a bourgeois central European family whose existence was threatened by the Nazis and Soviet rule.
Edith was born in the cultured city of Czernowitz, then the farthest eastern outpost of the Austro-Hungarian empire, and went to Vienna to study for a music diploma for six years. She led an ascetic, solitary life until moving to Paris for more training, enjoying a wealth of musical and social opportunities. Here she gave Ralph music tuition while he was at the Sorbonne researching a thesis on Jean-Jacques Rousseau.
While Ralph was home for the holidays, war broke out and he was unable to return. The couple always hoped to meet up but ended up keeping a correspondence through thick and thin. Letters were vetted by the censor, sometimes taking months to arrive. He was affected by childhood tragedy and a secret that burdened him for most of his life. Edith stayed on in France but with the German invasion life became increasingly precarious. So she fled to stay with her brother Reinhold and his wife Fa, both doctors in Bussières, near Lyon.
When this became unsafe Edith had a dangerous and tricky escape into Switzerland where despite internment
and restrictions she continued her concert pianist activities. Reinhold joined General de Gaulle’s Free French forces and had a distinguished career in anaesthetics, despite initial resistance from French surgeons. His bravery shines through, particularly his daring and difficult rescue of his mother, also called Martha who had miraculously survived the war – despite great privations – from Soviet life in Czernowitz.
Eventually Edith came to England and the couple married in July 1945. Despite proving impractical in household affairs, she combined a musical career with bringing up two children, John born nine months after the wedding and the author in 1954. By then the couple were living in Cambridge where Ralph – a distinguished linguist – was a Fellow
of Trinity College. Edith gave concerts, mainly in Switzerland, before her early death in 1972. As Professor of French
at Cambridge and visiting Professor at the Sorbonne, Ralph survived his wife by 15 years, being awarded a CBE at Buckingham Palace and the Légion d’honneur from France. When he died, he left behind a legacy of 49 volumes on Rousseau’s correspondence.
The author is to be congratulated on piecing together the story from a large family archive and her research, including visiting her mother’s birthplace now in the Ukraine. She is very good at social history and describing European turmoil during the war and the legacies the conflict left on her family. She also shows insight in exploring her parents’ feelings and the difficulties they faced throughout their lives.
By Jill Murphy, Bookbag, 20th May 2021.
Five stars.
Gosh. This is quite some book. I'll probably ruin it by reviewing it, so just buy it and read it.
End of review.
That's all I wanted to say, honestly. But I will try to explain myself.
Martha Leigh begins her book talking about a childhood spent in a slightly eccentric, immediately recognisable upper middle class English family. Her father is a Cambridge don, forever clacking away on his typewriter as he edits the complete correspondence of the philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau, his life's work. Her mother is a concert pianist who practises for hours every day. Neither parent is hugely interested in the practicalities of life. There is love in the house but also darker undercurrents that a child does not fully understand but knows is there.
It is only after her father dies and Martha begins to sort through his collected papers and correspondence, that she begins to make sense of these things that were never spoken. Ralph, her father, was a poor but gifted Jew from the East End of London, given a scholarship education. Edith, her mother, was a child with musical talent from a middle-class Jewish family in Eastern Europe. They had met in Paris during the 1930s and been separated by World War II. Somehow, they'd managed to keep in touch throughout the war years.
This journey takes us from what is today Chernivtsi in Ukraine and was then Czernowitz in Romania, to Paris, Vienna, Switzerland and London. The correspondence between Ralph and Edith is full and rich and tumultuous, as you'd expect any love story to be, but it's also underwritten with allusion and implication, partly because of wartime and censorship but also because of personal secrets. Ralph is carrying a big one.
There is so much detail in this book. From her father's papers and her own detective work, Leigh has pieced together a clear and compelling story of the war years and two families during the years leading up to the war. On her mother's side, there is the heroic resistance work done by her uncle, who later went on to be a medical pioneer, the survival of her grandmother and cousin, and the deaths in the Holocaust of others. On her father's side, there is poverty, anti-Semitism, and the tragedy of suicide. And there is a marriage borne of these years, with both parents brilliant and talented but scarred by experiences most of us could never fully understand.
The tone is clear and direct for the most part but punctuated with small asides that humanise it, sometimes laconic, sometimes sad, sometimes loving. The weight of history settles on every page. Recommended.
Five stars.
Gosh. This is quite some book. I'll probably ruin it by reviewing it, so just buy it and read it.
End of review.
That's all I wanted to say, honestly. But I will try to explain myself.
Martha Leigh begins her book talking about a childhood spent in a slightly eccentric, immediately recognisable upper middle class English family. Her father is a Cambridge don, forever clacking away on his typewriter as he edits the complete correspondence of the philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau, his life's work. Her mother is a concert pianist who practises for hours every day. Neither parent is hugely interested in the practicalities of life. There is love in the house but also darker undercurrents that a child does not fully understand but knows is there.
It is only after her father dies and Martha begins to sort through his collected papers and correspondence, that she begins to make sense of these things that were never spoken. Ralph, her father, was a poor but gifted Jew from the East End of London, given a scholarship education. Edith, her mother, was a child with musical talent from a middle-class Jewish family in Eastern Europe. They had met in Paris during the 1930s and been separated by World War II. Somehow, they'd managed to keep in touch throughout the war years.
This journey takes us from what is today Chernivtsi in Ukraine and was then Czernowitz in Romania, to Paris, Vienna, Switzerland and London. The correspondence between Ralph and Edith is full and rich and tumultuous, as you'd expect any love story to be, but it's also underwritten with allusion and implication, partly because of wartime and censorship but also because of personal secrets. Ralph is carrying a big one.
There is so much detail in this book. From her father's papers and her own detective work, Leigh has pieced together a clear and compelling story of the war years and two families during the years leading up to the war. On her mother's side, there is the heroic resistance work done by her uncle, who later went on to be a medical pioneer, the survival of her grandmother and cousin, and the deaths in the Holocaust of others. On her father's side, there is poverty, anti-Semitism, and the tragedy of suicide. And there is a marriage borne of these years, with both parents brilliant and talented but scarred by experiences most of us could never fully understand.
The tone is clear and direct for the most part but punctuated with small asides that humanise it, sometimes laconic, sometimes sad, sometimes loving. The weight of history settles on every page. Recommended.
By Michael Fitzpatrick, The Daily Telegraph, 8th March 2021.
Remarkable couple
Some years ago, my east London GP colleague Martha Leigh wrote Memories of Wapping, an oral history based on interviews with her elderly patients. She has now turned her considerable writing talents — her first degree was in English literature — to a family memoir published by Matador as Invisible Ink.
It is the story of her parents — Edith, a concert pianist born to a bourgeois Jewish family in Czernowitz in Bukovina (now Chernivtsi in Ukraine) and Ralph, a poor Jewish boy from Hackney in London, who was later a fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge and the editor of 49 volumes of the letters of Jean-Jacques Rousseau — and is based on their voluminous collection of wartime letters.
It is a wonderful tribute to her parents and to the wider family who suffered so much and yet survived through the terrible events of the 20th century. It is not only a remarkable story of remarkable people but also a story told with great warmth and sensitivity — particularly in relation to their struggles with the “spoiled identities” of Jewishness and homosexuality.
By David Herman, Jewish Chronicle, 23rd January 2021.
In 1973, R. A. Leigh was appointed Professor of French Literature at Cambridge. He was at the height of his career and was half-way through editing his life work, 49 volumes of The complete Correspondence of Jean-Jacques Rousseau.
It sounds as if he was a typical Cambridge don, but in Invisible Ink, his daughter’s extraordinary family memoir, a very different story emerges. Leigh was born in Hackney, the son of Alexander Lubotsky, an immigrant from Lithuania, who spoke Yiddish and could neither write nor read English. Leigh completely reinvented himself, changing his name to the much more English, Ralph Alexander Leigh, and living the life of a Fellow of Trinity College Cambridge, worlds away from East India Dock Road, where he grew up and where his mother committed suicide still in her thirties.
His wife, Edith, a gifted pianist, was born and grew up in Czernowitz, then a remote town in the Austro-Hungarian Empire, now in western Ukraine. On Herrengasse, the street where her family lived, there is a plaque which reads, “Czernowitz, half-way between Kiev and Bucharest, Krakow and Odessa, was the secret capital of Europe.”
Invisible Ink is a beautifully written, superbly researched and deeply moving story of Jewish immigrants and refugees. Ralph Leigh didn’t just leave the East End and change his name. He transformed himself into the most upper-class and scholarly of Cambridge dons. His wife, Edith left Czernowitz to study the piano in Paris when she was 17 and never returned. She met Ralph there in 1937. They were then separated by the war but eventually married in July 1945, even though he was gay and much of their correspondence was about his “psychological problem” and whether she could accept this.
During the war, Edith’s family was scattered across Europe. She and her brother, Reinhold, a doctor, lived in France, her parents and grandmother were trapped in Czernowitz and other relatives were sent to the Lodz ghetto. Somehow, they managed to keep in touch by post and Martha Leigh has done an extraordinary job using these letters to follow their movements across wartime Europe.
It is a gripping story, superbly told, crammed full of fascinating details which bring her parents to life. It is also full of suspense. Will Edith’s family survive the war? Will Edith and Ralph come to terms with his homosexuality? Never sentimental, Invisible Ink tells the story of two remarkable people, both Jews but from very different backgrounds living through terrible times. You won’t be able to put it down.
Invisible Ink: A Family Memoir by Martha Leigh is published by Matador. ISBN: 978-1-80046-038-6; RRP: £14.99.
By Sarah Birch Hackney Citizen, 28th January 2021
Part love story, part history, part meditation'
‘A union of geniuses’: Martha Leigh explores the lives of her parents Edith and Ralph.
Martha Leigh’s father was in the habit of meticulously cataloguing his papers. He saved all his correspondence, including hand-written drafts of letters he sent.
On sorting through old files after his death, Martha and her brother came upon an otherwise blank sheet of paper headed: “This page is written in invisible ink”. As she comments, he “must have enjoyed the prospect of his children sorting through his personal documents”.
And so began research by the Hackney-based GP on the lives of her parents, whose complex relationship is intertwined with some of the most traumatic events that humans beings have had to endure.
Invisible Ink is the resulting memoir – part love story, part 20th-century history, part personal meditation on identity and place.The experiences and heroic exploits of Leigh’s mother Edith and her relatives take up a fair bit of the narrative, as we follow them from what is now Ukrainian Chernivtsi to Paris and beyond during the 1930s and 1940s when Jewish people like the Kerns found their lives broken apart.
The author’s father Ralph is Hackney born and bred, the descendant of a Jewish family from Vilnius that had migrated to the UK in earlier times.
Edith and Ralph meet in Paris in the late 1930s, only to be forced apart by war and reunited in London in 1945. The intervening years are times of hardship and tremendous stress, documented in enigmatic letters written with a view to evading the layers of censorship to which they were invariably subject.
Theirs is a union of geniuses; Edith is a feted concert pianist and Ralph an up-and-coming scholar of Jean Jacques Rousseau. But at the heart of their relationship are deep questions about religious, national and gender identity. Ralph has changed his surname by deed poll from Lubotsky to Leigh, and Edith in later years teaches her children the importance of ‘fitting in’.
Censorship is not accomplished only by means of black ink and scissors; the elusive ‘invisible’ forms of obfuscation also leave profound marks on the family.
Written in a lively and engaging style, Invisible Ink is a moving story that probes with admirable delicacy some of the most pressing questions of our era.
Invisible Ink: A Family Memoir by Martha Leigh is published by Matador. ISBN: 978-1-80046-038-6; RRP: £14.99.