Images

<p>Claire Helen Siegal believed that the greatest evil in life was not to fulfill one’s potential. Through the written word a sensitive intelligent and acerbic voice emerges. In this autobiography—published posthumously by her executrix Elaine Levitt—Claire’s poetry essays and narrative text paint a portrait of its creator. Before she died Claire began her quest for self-understanding through her writing.<br />From her writings a flesh-and-blood woman emerges. She blends her variegated images to produce a self-portrait that paints her as she was in life: a vulnerable willful innocent cynical and always unforgettable woman. An idealist Claire yearned for the ideal but faced reality’s hard metallic edge with determination. Hers was a biting-edge sardonic wisdom learned at the expense of innocence. <br />Claire gave herself the moral mandate to put together this unconventional autobiography forcing you to see her importance so her soul could have peace. She didn’t want sympathy or compassion; she wanted affirmation of the life she lived as if this could make it meaningful.<br />Her life was a study in contrast; innocent and cynical by turns. Her persona is recognizable in all her writings. She was alone. G-d was not in her life. She was Jewish and proud of it but she removed G-d from the equation on the basis of what the Holocaust did to her family. She questioned everything letting nothing escape her notice. <br />You will not soon forget her or the images her life evokes.</p>