Non­fic­tion

We Are Going to Be Lucky: A World War II Love Sto­ry in Letters

  • From the Publisher
March 29, 2018

The sto­ry of a first-gen­er­a­tion Jew­ish Amer­i­can cou­ple, Lenny and Diana Miller, sep­a­rat­ed by World War II, cap­tured in their own words. Their east­ern Euro­pean her­itage is reflect­ed through the lens of Lenny’s ortho­dox home and Diana’s cul­tur­al­ly, but not reli­gious­ly obser­vant upbringing.

Deeply com­mit­ted to social jus­tice and bond­ed by love, both vowed to write to one anoth­er dai­ly after Lenny enlist­ed. As Lenny made his way through basic train­ing in Mis­sis­sip­pi to the beach­es of Nor­mandy as an Army scout and even­tu­al­ly to the Bat­tle of the Bulge, Diana strug­gled finan­cial­ly, giv­ing up her job as a machin­ist at the Brook­lyn Navy Yard to become a moth­er. Their con­tri­bu­tions to the war efforts are the back­drop to their cor­re­spon­dence, includ­ing dis­cus­sions of democ­ra­cy, the fight against Hitler and fas­cism, and eco­nom­ic hardship.

After decades of gath­er­ing dust, the cou­ple’s extra­or­di­nary let­ters, both his and hers, pre­served in their entire­ty, and reflect­ing their per­son­al sac­ri­fices, have been care­ful­ly tran­scribed and thought­ful­ly edit­ed and anno­tat­ed by Eliz­a­beth L. Fox, Lenny and Diana’s daughter.

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