Hitler and My Mother-in-Law
Format:Paperback
Publisher:OR Books
Published:7th May '26
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Hitler and My Mother-in-Law is a memoir about a female WWII correspondent, propaganda, and the shifting boundaries between memory and truth—for fans of Rebecca Donner.
Threaded with dark humor and sharp observation, this intriguing memoir interweaves the lives of two women: the author, a renowned writer, and her husband‘s mother, the only female journalist to cover WWII in both Atlantic and Pacific theaters.
One of the first women hired by CBS Radio, Pat Lochridge was the only female journalist to cover both the Pacific and Atlantic theaters of WWII. She interviewed Hermann Göring twice, climbed to Hitler’s redoubt at Eagle’s Nest, was a friend of FDR, and the postwar mayor of Berchtesgaden. Sometimes even her four sons questioned the validity of their mother's stories. The first time she met her daughter-in-law (author Terese Svoboda), Pat showed her a photo of herself and a pile of ashes and said the US command had asked her to identify them as Hitler’s. Was she a fabulist, a trailblazer, or was she simply doing her job?
Threaded with dark humor and personal reflection, this memoir explores the stories we inherit and the ones we invent, the official histories we parrot, and the quiet manipulations we accept. From Cold War propaganda and McCarthy-era paranoia to newsroom sexism and the strange theater of postwar art-world politics, Hitler and My Mother-in-Law reveals a life extraordinary—and perhaps crafted. With sharp insight, Svoboda unpacks the contradictions embedded in such a narrative, weaving in reflections on her own experiences in journalism, family, and the uneasy inheritance of truth-through-marriage.
With a voice that is at once skeptical and affectionate, the author navigates the slippery terrain of memory—her own and others’—while wrestling with the impossible task of pinning down truth. In an age of misinformation, spin, and revisionism, this book is an excavation of narrative and memoir itself, and a warning about the seductions of a good story.
"What a bold, vibrant, and intensely original book this is."
—Joan Silber, author of Mercy
"Wit, imagination, and marked acumen about our on-going preoccupation with censorship, witch hunts, and truth-telling vs. fakery makes this provocative memoir a highly engaging read."
—Carolyn Burke, author of Lee Miller
"Highly researched, intimate, and always engaging, Svoboda’s memoir teaches us to appreciate both 'the contours of what you don’t know' and, more than that, 'the mysteries.'"
—Jehanne Dubrow, author of Civilians and Exhibitions: Essays on Art & Atrocity
"Canny, meandering, and revelatory, it’s a remarkable family memoir that stretches across major developments of the 20th century while questioning how the truth gets produced. Readers will be riveted."
—Publishers Weekly
"A sharp, unsettling memoir that begins with a family legend and expands into looted art, Cold War secrets, and the lives women aren’t allowed to tell. Terese Svoboda writes with wit, rigor, and emotional bite. I read it as a journalist and daughter-in-law — and couldn’t look away."
—Laurie Gwen Shapiro, author of The Aviator and the Showman
"A breathtakingly broad look at the history and significance of war and restitution, art and ownership, family and responsibility, truth and memory."
—Carolyn Edy, author of The Woman Correspondent, the U.S. Military, and the Press, 1846–1947
“Meticulously researched and thoughtful when looking at the past. This is Svoboda at the height of her power as a writer.”
—Electric Literature
PRAISE FOR TERESE SVOBODA:
"One of our best writers.”
—Karen Russell, author of Swamplandia! and Sleep Donation
“One of the writers you would be tempted to read regardless of the setting of the period or the plot or even the genre.”
—Bloomsbury Review
“A true original.”
—Emily St. John Mandel, author of Station Eleven and The Glass Hotel
PRAISE FOR TERESE SVOBODA'S PREVIOUS WORKS:
“Svoboda's prose is...stuffed to the brim — with invention, surprise and the sweaty mystery of whom we get tangled up with, and why.”
—New York Times
“Exquisite....[Svoboda] crafts singular depictions of her characters’ inner worlds.”
—Publishers Weekly
ISBN: 9781682196519
Dimensions: unknown
Weight: unknown
416 pages