Anne Bernays

Dannie Faber, a wife, mother of two adult children and successful illustrator of children's books, spends most of her time at the family's beach home in Truro, Cape Cod, but the too-close construction of an overly large mansion and a distressing hate crime leave her questioning her marriage and her life choices.

"Novelist Anne Bernays, born in 1930, and biographer Justin Kaplan, born in 1925, both natives of New York, came of age in the 1950s, when the pent-up energies of the Depression years and World War II were at flood tide. Back Then, written in two separate voices, is the candid, anecdotal account of two children of privilege, one from New York's East Side, the other from the West Side, pursuing careers in publishing and eventually leaving to write their own books. They both sought self-knowledge and realization through years of psychoanalysis. They brushed shoulders with celebrities like William Faulkner, Somerset Maugham, Marlene Dietrich, and Anatole Broyard.". "Before Bernays and Kaplan met and married, each had enjoyed the sexual and social freedom that, along with the dark shadow of McCarthyism and the Cold War, was among the distinguishing marks of the 1950s. In many other respects, the story they tell could almost as well be about an earlier era."--BOOK JACKET.

Why are we so often annoyed when somebody gets our name wrong? Because our sense of self is involved, and our names touch on every aspect of our lives. Prospective parents pore over baby-naming books, believing that the right choice will set their infant on the right track. Immigrants change their names to assimilate into American society; blacks to recover their African roots or to establish an Islamic identity; movie stars to conform to Hollywood images of WASP-ness, high society, or exoticism. Drawing on social and literary history, psychology and anthropology, anecdotes, and life stories, Pulitzer Prize-winning biographer Justin Kaplan and celebrated novelist Anne Bernays have created a fascinating account of names and naming in contemporary society that touches on class structure, ethnic and religious practices, manners, and everyday life. Their primary focus is the United States, which from its beginnings has been conspicuously preoccupied with identity, self-definition, and self-invention while sharing the concerns of other societies distant in time and place.