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MWSA Review
The Invisible Highway by Robert Asztalos is a well written book based on excellent research. It begins with the history of the towns and countries of origin of the author’s Hungarian and Italian immigrant ancestors, along with the stories of how they immigrated to the U.S. It includes relatively brief and easy to understand histories of WWI, the 1920s, and the Great Depression. Most of the book is about WWII through the experiences of three men connected with the author’s family in Europe and the Pacific. The final chapter tells the story of life after the war through the death of his parents.
Overall, the book is engaging and educational. There are lots of photographs that bring the characters and story to life. It does get technical in some places, especially in the chapters about WWII. If the reader is not interested in that level of detail, they can skim those sections.
This book should appeal to readers interested in genealogy, family history, immigration from Europe, and military history. You will learn a lot about life in America and around the world from the 1890s through the late 1940s, and life in America after WWII.
Review by Eva Nevarez St. John (January 2025)
Author's Synopsis
The lives of Charles and Roseann Asztalos are classic American melting pot stories. Their parents and grandparents immigrated to the United States in the late 1800s and early 1900s as part of a wave of Europeans looking for a new life in the Promised Land. The adults who raised them began their lives in villages on the European continent and were shaped by the horrors of World War I; they risked the arduous voyage for a new life in America. Charles and Roseann’s generation had their youth interrupted by the Great Depression, and they came of age to serve our country in its darkest hours during World War II. The war forever changed them in ways they could never guess when they began to experience life in the 1930s.
Charles and Roseann fulfilled their older family members’ dreams of creating an American family. They blended four European families and produced four children without allegiance to the old world or--for that matter-- to the old immigrant neighborhoods from which they were born. Charles and Roseann were indeed part of a generational engine that produces Americans and their story of immigration, economic depression and service during World War II is the story of America.
Format(s) for review: Paper and Kindle
Review Genre: Nonfiction—History
Number of Pages: 376
Word Count: 123,883