My Mother’s Suitcase

In this compelling part-memoir part-biography, Wanda Lynn Lefler delves into the deep psychological background of her family dynamics, unfolding her own childhood against the origins of her parents, Bobby an American southern boy and Inga, a Norwegian girl.

Inga was two years old when her homeland offered valiant resistant to Hitler’s invading forces. She felt what it was to be cold to the bone and to be hungry enough to eat blood pancakes and bark off a tree. The child was relentlessly shamed over her indigenous Sami heritage. Bobby was the eldest son of a proud family, shouldering the weight of family expectations. The divorce of his street-preaching, alcohol nipping father from his mother of questionable repute by 1940’s standards, was a hefty load. Bob left home at 17, Inga at 15, both escaping to sea to change bleak futures instead determining their own lives. Having traveled the world, they met while docked in Long Beach, California. Would this adventurous couple drag suitcases packed with pain and lofty expectations to new family they were to create or did they bury it in the deep blue sea? Will their daughter plunge the family to the deepest depths by revealing what was sunken, a name written on a stamped envelope and the location of her mother’s suitcase containing all her written thoughts and feelings locked inside?