Twenty Life Lessons: A Memoir

Today in the name of increased national security, are we wiling to return to the broad brushstrokes which demonize, deport and deprive working class people of their dignity?

Now that Donald Trump is president Twenty Life Lessons explores America during the 1950's and 1960's. Was it really as great for working Americans as Trump claims? The author remembers how Senator Joe McCarthy and F.B.I. Director J. Edgar Hoover persecuted many working class Americans including his parents. For years his father had his life disrupted by the FBI which discovered no evidence for a criminal indictment. The FBI then conspired with the Immigration and Naturalization Service to deport him. Abrams establishes a direct link between the bullying of McCarthyism and those of Donald J. Trump.

Yet this memoir is optimistic in that people can lead resilient, meaningful lives and overcome bullies whether on a street corner in Brooklyn or in the corridors of power in Washington D.C. Focusing on his family for four generations, Abrams gives the reader a gift of how to find fulfillment.

Legacies are invaluable; they transmit the richness of life to future generations. In Twenty Life Lessons, Abrams reflects on his life experiences and finds in them poignant lessons for his young grandchildren. These “teachable moments” touch on everything from work and play to love and loss. They are anchored in Abrams’s own experiences as he witnessed McCarthyism ravage his parents’ lives, worked to become a master teacher, and struggled to cope with immense personal loss. Twenty Life Lessons is a treasure trove for young readers and a challenge to anyone who has a story to tell. It is an inspiration to find meaning in our memories and embark on the rewarding work of communicating that meaning to others. This memoir challenges readers who want to pass on the importance of life to their children and grandchildren to do so.

Twenty Life Lessons is Abrams's blueprint on how to lead a good life. Each chapter is designed for readers to judge the beliefs and values expressed. This introspection is especially important considering the vast social and political divide currently plaguing our country. People on both sides of the schism are dissatisfied and need to look inward before they can effectively communicate without anger to each other.

This memoir has two voices. The first is a child who discovers the government suspects his loving parents of being communists. The second is of a grandfather trying to explain to his grandchild how to achieve the safety of a good life. Abrams weaves the effects the government's institutional persecution of his parents and the subsequent choices he made to protect himself and those he loves. The insights are "lessons" in human dignity.

Using his grandparents' FBI files, Abrams reinvigorates our current debate over national security and civil liberties. His skills, as an educator and story-teller, empower the reader to assert a common humanity which is in sharp contrast to the bullies and demagogues who wish to amass power, instill fear and stymie change.

Lawrence Abrams is a retired high school principal in New York City, where he worked for several decades to reform public education and advocate for the small-school movement. His student-centered approach to teaching has won national recognition. Abrams’s first book, The Grievance: A Real Life-and-Death Story, tells the heat-wrenching story of the death of his wife, recounts his grieving process, and calls to reform America’s end-of-life system. At the 2016 San Miguel Writers’ Conference, Abrams developed the seeds for what would become Twenty Life Lessons, a non-chronological memoir that gathers together lessons from his parents’ lives and his own personal experiences. Abrams lives in Manhattan and the Berkshires.