Luisa Smith

Honor Thy Father and Mother Luisa Smith

Honor Thy Father and Mother is an unflinching portrayal of family cruelties. Eighteen year old Nora, a child of Holocause survivors, struggles to negotiate life with parents who are both victims and perpetrators. The story opens as she runs from an abusive home into the arms of a violent boyfriend. During the course of a year, she marries, gives birth to a stillborn child, divorces and is twice raped by her father. Dissociated from childhood memories of sexual abuse, and uncannily split off from her father's current attacks, she is a woman divided from herself. Thus we can see in Nora a psychological study of a fragmented personality. Consoled by her studies, and empowered by her books, she is able, finally, to rise up against her father and thus put an end to his assaults. While she remains, at the end, disconnected from truths too painful to acknowledge, we see in her fierce will and intellect a road map towards recovery.