In this most recent sequel to his award-winning memoir, "Mother and Me—Escape from Warsaw 1939," Julian Padowicz presents the adult years of his continuing struggle to become his own person, in the face of his domineering mother's responses to the personal challenges created by the invasion of Poland by Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia. Three previous memoirs covered his childhood and adolescence as Julian and his courageous and creative mother struggle to survive WWII and escape to America—in this one, adult Julian, educated now in the United States, struggles to free himself of the suffocating pall his celebrated but driven and self-centered mother has laid over his life.

Growing up in a venerable boarding school and the homes of relatives, while his mother pursues social objectives, Julian searches for companionship, love, and a career, achieving them eventually, after a series of missteps and misadventures.