Peter Gabor Ernster

Singing for my Father Peter Gabor Ernster

In "Singing for my Father" Peter Ernster relates the dramatic history of his family, providing the setting for the awkward circumstance of his birth in Budapest in the middle of World War II, a birth initially unwelcomed by his father, a world renowned opera singer. He escapes the worst horrors of the Holocaust and the War largely through the courage and resourcefulness of his mother, but not without terrifying experiences that would make fear and overcoming it defining aspects of his character. His assimilation into American childhood is difficult, and he is further undermined by his largely absent yet ever-present father. He develops self-confidence over summers at a unique, spartan camp in the Blue Ridge Mountains, four years at a Quaker boarding school and his college years in New York City. The memoir culminates in those college years in which his focus changes chameleon-like from studies to life in Greenwich Village, sports, classical music, becoming a fighter pilot, a bizarre job, and women. All this is interspersed between quitting school to join the merchant marine amid two very different and eventful, extended stays in Europe, including a return to Hungary. But meeting the love of his life changes everything. Throughout, his adventures and misadventures are alternately frightening or hilarious, poignant or stark, and told with directness and dry humor.