“What I have to realize is that I might not be around when Dylan’s older. I may not make it, so I’ve been writing a history for him. There are things I want him to know. I want him to know about being Jewish. I had a lot of relatives killed in the Holocaust, but I want him to know he’s related to people who survived.”
Good Morning America’s long time movie critic shared with his son and readers what he’d learned in his very personal and inspiring memoir, Lessons For Dylan.
At the age of fifty-four, Joel Siegel both became a father for the first time and learned that he had cancer. Fearing he may not live long enough for his long awaited child to know who he was, he began a story spanning his childhood, career, and the lectures every father expects to give their kids.
“If you fight back and get hit, it hurts a little while; if you don’t fight back it hurts forever.”
It is an interesting history depicting his path from an immigrant neighborhood to national television. He spoke at length about his work in the civil rights movement with both Martin Luther King Jr. and the political campaign of Bobby Kennedy who was assassinated in front of him. Siegel candidly addresses the more difficult passages of his life, including the end of his marriage to Dylan’s mother and the experience of having cancer. But he also shares great stories from show biz that include Orson Wells, Paul Newman, Brad Pitt, Stevie Wonder, and all four Beatles. He lays out the History of the Jewish People in Four Jokes; and offers fatherly advice on sex “ask your mother”, work, and what to cook for Rosh Hashanah with recipes included. He even dedicated a whole chapter to all the Yiddish his son would need to know and why the Jews have over 29 words for “Schmuck.”
Most touching are later chapters entitled “I’d Give Anything to Take You to Your First Ball Game” and “Movies I Want to Watch With You” that really rang authentic and heart breaking as I pictured what legacy of words I would want to leave to my children.
“Of course this entire time Ena was pregnant with Dylan. I made very bad jokes about not knowing which of us was throwing up more.”
This memoir is a history lesson; it is a biography, and inspirational literature. The day I closed the book on the last page I was compelled to sit a little longer and laugh a little more with the three precious kids in my own life.
Joel Siegel died from colon cancer on June 29, 2007 shortly before what would have been his 64th birthday. His family has said the last movie he saw was Ratatouille with his son.
GENRE: Biography
