A Ship in the Har­bor: Moth­er and Me, Book II, is a con­tin­u­a­tion of Book I, Moth­er and Me: Escape from War­saw 1939. Book II begins with the author’s mother’s funer­al in a Catholic ceme­tery in Con­necti­cut — a sto­ry in itself — and then relates the har­row­ing jour­ney over the Carpathi­an Moun­tains to Hun­gary as moth­er and son escape from Poland dur­ing the Nazi incur­sion and Russ­ian occu­pa­tion. Back in Poland, his moth­er had relin­quished all respon­si­bil­i­ty for his upbring­ing to a Catholic gov­erness, who had been more a moth­er to him than his own beau­ti­ful, deca­dent moth­er. She depends on the gen­eros­i­ty of a large cir­cle of socialite friends and becomes the mis­tress of a wealthy Ruman­ian count who turns out to be a crook, where­upon moth­er and son return to Budapest and the largesse of the mother’s friends. This is the mer­ri­est, most light-heart­ed descrip­tive nar­ra­tive about this peri­od of his­to­ry that I have ever read. It would make a great novel.