The Struggle to Survive

A TRILOGY OF A FAMILY SAGA
Volume I: The Security of Silence

The first novel of the trilogy portrays the lives of Emilie and Friederich Malin originating in the late 19th and early 20th centuries in southwestern Germany. Emilie came from an upper middle Class family whose father was a newspaper owner/publisher. Tragically, she lost her father when she was 13 years of age and never quite got over the loss. She met an older man who was not only a prosperous businessman, but one whose family, her mother said, was from the lowest class in town. She ignored her mother's advice and married him. He became a father surrogate for her. She had everything she wanted. Her comfortable life style continued even though she discovered her husband had an unsavory appetite for women. She attributed his difficulty in relating to other persons because of a war wound as a soldier in the German army in World War I. He had lost his ability to speak in a normal tone of voice due to the incompetence of the field surgeon who cut the nerves to his vocal cords. He could only whisper and subsequently, Emilie became his interpreter with the customers for his business. He resented this dependence upon her and decided it would be best to emigrate to America as the rest of his family had done. Emilie did not want to leave Germany, but she felt herself trapped in a marriage from which she believed she could not escape. She was afraid of her husband's anger and felt, for the sake of their children, she would have to remain silent.

Volume II: A Conspiracy of Silence

A Conspiracy of Silence is the second novel of the trilogy and takes place initially in Germany as the family gets ready to leave for America. Emilie learns more about her husband's infidelities than she really wanted to know but felt there was nothing she could do about them. She believed them to be part of the past and her orientation was always to look towards the future. Upon arriving in the United States, Friederich buys two different businesses before deciding to buy a farm. He knew nothing about farming but thought he would have fewer encounters with other people on a farm. His handicap would not be such an overwhelming problem for him. His sisters and one brother-in-law go into farming with him from April to September only to find that the combined income from tourism, operating a gas station, dairying, and raising crops were insufficient to maintain three families. They leave him and his wife to return to the city. Friederich and Emilie have to do the work once carried on by four additional persons. Emilie doesn't see how they can do all of the farm work plus take care of the gas station and care for her family with a third newborn. But learning to milk, in addition to caring for their three children, cooking, planting crops and harvesting them, leaves her no choice but to work as she had never envisioned. In Germany she had been a Kindergarten and Elementary school teacher. Her husband tells her she has no alternative other than to continue to work the farm with him. The depression deprives them of any surplus savings and the devastating barn fires end their dairy operation. The work of last resort is to turn to the woods which Friederich does to cut firewood for income and logs with which to saw lumber and rebuild his barns. His proclivity for sex, however, continues to know no bounds.

Volume III: The Struggle to Survive

The Struggle to Survive is the final novel of the trilogy of this immigrant family. Emilie and Friederich have survived the transition from Germany to the United States. They have moved from an urban environment to a rural one. They have fallen to the lowest level of income. In spite of all of these difficulties, they survived to rebuild their barns, resurrect their dairy, expand