Found and Lost

Alison Leslie Gold is best known for her works that have kept alive stories from the time of the Holocaust, stories of courage and survival—most famously her Anne Frank Remembered, coauthored with Miep Gies (who risked her life to protect the Frank family). Gold has never chosen to write about her own life or what made her into a gatherer of other people’s stories, until now, in Found and Lost.

Starting with her childhood experience of running her primary school’s lost and found depot—where she sorted through lost mittens, among other items—Gold charts the origin of her need to save objects, stories, and people (including herself) whom she has sensed to be on a road to perdition. After experiencing the deaths and burials of people close to her (mother, lover, mentor, friend), she develops, through a series of letters, a meditation on aging, friendship, loss, and the forces that link us to the dead. The letters tell of her early activism; her descent into alcoholism and subsequent recovery; and her discovery of the power of writing to give shape and meaning to a life. Found and Lost is both a tender memorial to the extraordinary people in Gold’s life and a compelling tale of redemption.