Found and Lost: Mittens, Miep, and Shovelfuls of Dirt

Synopsis: A luminous memoir from the Holocaust writer, Alison Leslie Gold, told through a series of letters to the living and the dead.

Alison Leslie Gold is best known for her works that have kept alive stories from the time of the Holocaust, stories of courage and survival - most famously her Anne Frank Remembered, co-authored with Miep Gies (who risked her life to protect the Frank family). She has never chosen to write about her own life or what made her into a gatherer of other people's stories, until now, in Found and Lost. 

Starting with her childhood experience of running her primary school 'Lost and Found' depot, Gold charts the origin of her need to save objects, stories, people - including herself - whom she has sensed to be on a road to perdition. After a series of deaths of people close to her (mother, lover, mentor, friend), she develops, though a series of letters, a meditation on aging, friendship, loss and the forces that link us to the dead. The letters tell of her early activism; her descent into alcoholism and subsequent recovery; and they tell of her discovery of the power of writing to give shape and meaning to a life. Found and Lost is both a tender memorial to the extraordinary people in her life, and a compelling tale of redemption.