FAMILY PORTRAITS: Remembrances by Twenty Distinguished Writers,...

FAMILY PORTRAITS: Remembrances by Twenty Distinguished Writers, edited by Carolyn Anthony (Penguin: $9.95, illustrated). Although the collection itself seems somewhat unfocused, many of these autobiographical sketches by writers ranging from Louis Auchincloss to Wallace Stegner are quite memorable. Morley Togrov uses vivid Jewish humor to describe the horrified parental reaction to his youthful dreams of becoming a second George Gershwin and living in luxury in New York City. Gloria Steinem recalls spending her childhood watching over her deeply disturbed mother, whose emotional problems forced them to reverse the roles of care-giver and -receiver. Isaac Bashevis Singer’s account of his mother’s life in a Polish shtetl echoes themes found in much of his fiction. In a haunting coda, he describes the final lesson in charity he learned from her, when she was sent to her death in a Russian labor camp during World War II.