Novel takes readers on emotional journey through '50s and '60s
It's not unusual for people who have lived compelling lives to hear: 'You should write a book.' Laguna Woods resident Barbara Wolk, a retired Span...
It's not unusual for people who have lived compelling lives to hear: 'You should write a book.' Laguna Woods resident Barbara Wolk, a retired Spanish and English as a Second Language teacher, did just that. Under the pen name Diana Kingsley, she wrote 'Mother in Name Only.' Written with emotional and intelligent clarity, the novel illuminates Wolk's life growing up in New York as a 'nice Jewish girl' saddled with all the constraints of coming of age in the 1950s and '60s. That meant being taught to be obedient and chaste, to present the right appearances in manners and looks and, if need be, to be ready to forgive and forget transgressions – especially those committed by the opposite sex.