Images

Claire Helen Siegal believed that the greatest evil in life was not to fulfill one’s potential. Through the written word, a sensitive, intelligent, and acerbic voice emerges. In this autobiography—published posthumously by her executrix, Elaine Levitt—Claire’s poetry, essays, and narrative text paint a portrait of its creator. Before she died, Claire began her quest for self-understanding through her writing.

From her writings, a flesh-and-blood woman emerges. She blends her variegated images to produce a self-portrait that paints her as she was in life: a vulnerable, willful, innocent, cynical, and always unforgettable woman. An idealist, Claire yearned for the ideal, but faced reality’s hard, metallic edge with determination. Hers was a biting-edge, sardonic wisdom, learned at the expense of innocence.

Claire gave herself the moral mandate to put together this unconventional autobiography forcing you to see her importance, so her soul could have peace. She didn’t want sympathy or compassion; she wanted affirmation of the life she lived, as if this could make it meaningful.

Her life was a study in contrast; innocent and cynical by turns. Her persona is recognizable in all her writings. She was alone. G-d was not in her life. She was Jewish and proud of it, but she removed G-d from the equation on the basis of what the Holocaust did to her family. She questioned everything, letting nothing escape her notice.

You will not soon forget her, or the images her life evokes.