How did I get here?
Review of Mary Appel Kooy’s memoir.
How Did I Get Here?
Mary Appel Kooy
Carnelian Moon Publishing
2025
The narrative arc in Mary Kooy’s How Did I Get Here? An Immigrant’s Odyssey is framed by the encouraging voices of a Dutch community leader, a high school principal, and a faculty advisor. Yet the emotional content is dominated by a far more formidable force: her mother. Only by rejecting her mother’s voice does Mary find her own.
This memoir details a displacement that shapes her academic path. Focusing her research on how narrative influences life, her own discovered voice then builds a framework for educators where storytelling is central.
The struggle to reconstruct her past is reflected in the book’s structure. Each chapter is visually designed as a faded image of the cover’s backdrop, mimicking the hazy, delicate process of memory recall.
This book is a welcome voice among recent narratives emerging from the postwar Dutch diaspora. While the first generation assimilated quickly due to shared cultural traditions, second-generation writers prove that true integration operates on a much deeper, more complex level.
