Through My Mother Eyes

Through My Mother's Eyes
Michael McCoy with Jean-Marie Heskett
Strategic Book Publishing
ISBN: 978-1-60693-015-1
Non-Fiction, Memoir
Reviewed by Kate Greenwood

December 7th, 1941 was a scary day for Americans at home and abroad. The Japanese attack was sudden and destructive marking the beginning of a long deadly war. While Japanese Americans were herded into internment camps in the Western U.S., Americans living abroad, specifically in the Philippines , were asked to surrender to Japanese internment camps. Jean-Marie Faggiano was six years old the day her father, Gene, her mother, Eileen, and her older brother, Jimmy, packed three days worth of clothes and arrived at Santo Tomas Internment Camp in Manilla, Philippines. The Faggiano’s wealth and success was meaningless in what soon became a daily struggle for survival. From lack of sufficient food and medical care to inane laws enacted by their Japanese captors, the Faggiano’s and the other 3,000 internees endured for 37 months.

Through My Mother's Eyes is Jean-Marie’s vivid story of courage and cruelty, fear and faith, and love and loss as told to her oldest son Michael McCoy. The reader will be amazed by the clarity of this story though over 60 years have passed since the Japanese surrender to U.S. Forces. On that memorable day in February 1945 Jean-Marie became a poster child for hope and internees when a photo of her and a soldier presenting her a doll appeared in the Stars and Stripes publication. This memoir is both educational and emotional as feelings bleed from the pages and the gaps are filled in a history lesson of the struggles of Americans abroad during WW II.

The resilience of Jean-Marie and her family will inspire the reader. And though this is a story based on war, genuine humanity shines through from both sides as people do what’s necessary to survive, both physically and emotionally.