cover image Lost in the Fog: Memoir of a Bastard

Lost in the Fog: Memoir of a Bastard

Rachel Van Meers, as told to Daniel Chase. . Academy Chicago, $15.95 (225pp) ISBN 978-0-89733-571-3

Van Meers's childhood was so miserable even Dickens might have softened it. She was born in a Belgian home for unwed mothers in 1930. Her mother once hit her so hard she lost the hearing in one ear, and dubbed her “nails in my coffin.” The rest of the family wasn't much better. One aunt, an aspiring nun, once gave her counterfeit money. An uncle encouraged her to steal a bike, then pushed her and the bike into a canal. But her blood relatives were delightful compared to her stepfather, a violent, abusive Nazi sympathizer. When a feisty 13-year-old Rachel spat at him, he sent her to a work camp in Germany. Only after she became deathly ill a year later was she returned to Belgium for treatment. Yet Van Meers is remarkably free of bitterness. She's equally free of the powers of reflection. The clumsy prose (“Belgium is two languages”) reflects the less than graceful (and sometimes coarse) English of Van Meers, who now lives in Oregon. But as a fascinating mix of horror, survival and dogged determination, this book is hard to put down. Photos. (July)