Amalgam: An Immigrant, His Labor Union, and His American Family in Brooklyn (Hardcover)

In a uniquely told immigrant story, visual artist Frances Jetter connects her own life to her ancestors' and their ties to the labor movement. The narrative begins with Abram, a passionate advocate in his union but a tyrant at home, revealing the contradictions that make up his life and so many others. Some pages depict the struggle of workers, others are haunting vignettes of abandoned dolls and forgotten friends. It's also a love letter to Jetter's mother who hovers in the artist's mind like a ghost. There is a profound, understated moral power in Jetter's remembrance of loved ones, etching their essences in the same linoleum material that made up the floors of her childhood.