Freese says that ‘memory must metabolize [the Holocaust] endlessly, ’ and his book certainly turns hell into harsh nourishment: keeps us alert, sharpens our nerves and outrage, forbids complacent sleep so the historical horror can’t be glossed over as mere nightmare. The Holocaust wasn’t a dream or even a madness. It was a lucid, non-anomalous act that is ever-present in rational Man. In the face of this fact Freese never pulls punches. Rather, his deft, brutal, and insightful words punch and punch until dreams’ respite are no longer an option and insanity isn’t an excuse.

–David Herrle, Author of Sharon Tate and the Daughters of Joy … Freese’s haunting lament might best be explained (at least to me) by something Nathaniel Hawthorne wrote about Herman Melville’s endless search for answers to questions that perplexed him all his adult life. Melville was incessantly obsessed with what one might call the why of it all-life, death, metaphysical mysteries. Similar to Freese, Melville was repeatedly afflicted with a dark and depressive state of mind.

–Duff Brenna, Professor Emeritus CSU San Marcos Mathias B. Freese is a writer, teacher, and psychotherapist. His recent collection of essays, This M bius Strip of Ifs, was the winner of the National Indie Excellence Book Award of 2012 in general nonfiction and a 2012 Global Ebook Award finalist. His I Truly Lament: Working Through the Holocaust was one of three finalists chosen in the 2012 Leapfrog Press Fiction Contest out of 424 submissions.