The Compelling Story of the Wife and Mother
of Two Poetry Pulitzer Prize Winners,
James Wright and Franz Wright
by Liberty Kovacs, Ph.D., MFT, MSN
Libby’s Oldest Son, Franz Wright, Poetry Pulitzer Prize Winner, Says. . . Liberty Kovacs is the most inspiring person I have ever known. The wife and mother of two infamously, recklessly self-centered, and self- destructive writers (I’m the son), her life—as teacher, therapist, and writer —is an embodiment of self-sacrifice, triumph over adversity, and the never-ending quest to lessen rather than contribute to the suffering of other human beings. It is a religious life, in the truest and most literal sense, and this book is the history of that life. I know it will provide serenity, courage, and inspiration to anyone in need of them. —Franz Wright, Poetry Pulitzer Prize Winner for his 2003 poetry collection, Walking to Martha's Vineyard and author of The Beforelife, God's Silence, The Night World and the Word Night, and others
* * * * *
Liberty Kovacs’ life story has all the elements of the American Dream, both its myth and its reality. Breaking free from the patriarchal rule of her Greek immigrant family, she set an uneasy but independent course that led to her becoming a nurse and marrying fellow Ohioan, the poet James Wright. Headed for the fabled Land of Happiness, Life broke in with all its unpredictable misery: living in Minneapolis with their two sons, the marriage was soon riven by alcoholism, angers, unspeakable trauma and eventually bitter divorce. Bereft but courageous, Liberty set a new course and headed west to San Francisco where she had a scholarship to study psychiatric nursing. A single mother, she experienced triumphs in her profession, married again and bore a third son — that household too fell victim to unhappiness and despairs. Yet with each blow, her spirit rose again and again, never giving up on herself or her sons, whom she writes about with disarming openness. Liberty Kovacs has endured, endures, with what can only be called a spiritual, and maybe American, will. Reading this memoir, we experience her life as an epic quest toward wisdom, learning how to live, as she writes, with love, acceptance and generosity. —Merrill Leffler, publisher of Dryad Press, author of Partly Pandemonium, Partly Love (poems) and Take Hold
* * * * *
In striving for truthfulness and authenticity, Liberty (Eleutheria) Kovacs tells her story with uncompromising and often startling honesty. The structure of her extensive narrative is shaped by paradigms from psychotherapy. But the mainly introspective nature of her material is balanced by a wealth of evocative details from the world she, family, and neighbors inhabited. Kovacs herself is a clinical therapist who practiced marriage counseling successfully for thirty-five years. Her story tells what happens to families in trouble and why, especially to second generation immigrant youth when they are caught between the language, culture, religion and politics of the parent generation and the promises, customs and mores of the new civilization in the U.S. Liberty’s people came from the Dodekanese in Greece. They brought with them an almost Homeric doctrine of honor as the value above values. Liberty, victimized by it, fought this doctrine all her life. Ironically, it also contributed to what is best in her. No wonder her accounts read like parts of a novel from Tolstoy or scenes from a Greek tragedy. On the surface, all immigrant stories are the same, exuding optimism and happiness: Move to the U.S., get a good job, find a mate, marry, buy a house, and construct a new identity. If we are lucky, we prosper and send our children to college or help them to get a start in business. When we dig below the surface, matters are more complicated and ambiguous because immigrants often bring with them psychic and genetic histories full of incendiary material ready to explode when it comes into friction with the values of the new environment in school, church, work, and community. As Liberty Kovacs shows, the life of many of the people trapped between the Old Country and the American Dream is decidedly unhappy and often has destructive consequences. But her autobiography is not all dark. Her account of white-water rafting on the rivers of the West and Southwest, including the Colorado, is poetic and inspiring. The rivers helped Liberty, as the Irish would say, make her soul. The fight for freedom, integrity and balance was worth it.
Although this book will never furnish the libretto for a Broadway musical, I highly recommend it. It is a must read for all who have struggled and are struggling with adapting to the stages of life. But I hope it will also be read and discussed by immigrant groups, members of the medical profession, therapists and their clients, as well as practicing and aspiring writers. I would have added "politicians" to this list, but most of them are not interested in the stark facts of immigrant realities and would rather build fences to keep the rabble out. —Franz Schneider, Ph.D., LL.D. Professor Emeritus, Gonzaga University, Spokane, WA, English and Comparative Literature
* * * * *
A person’s name is often their birthright. This is certainly the case with Libby Kovacs. Her Greek immigrant father named his first-born child, Eleutheria or, in English, Liberty; and his bestowal set the theme for her life. Through a Depression-era childhood on the banks of the often-flooding Ohio River, struggling to be a good Greek daughter while growing up as an American child, to disinheritance by her father for leaving home to attend nursing school, to an early marriage to a brilliant but alcoholic poet, to her long life as a successful marriage and family therapist dealing with her own challenges with familial mental illness and discord in her second marriage to a survivor of Nazi and Communist terrorism, Kovacs shows a desire and drive to be free that will astound and inspire any reader.
Kovacs spent her life dedicated to fulfilling a vow she made to herself at seven, to be free, to find the liberty her father promised her at birth. Her journey has been chaotic, dramatic, and marked by tragedy and, in the end, heroic because she achieves what she set out to do at seven, she made her life hers without oversight and she kept her freedom.
I have always found the lives of others an inspiration for living my own life and Kovacs’ life is no exception. The challenges Kovacs faced, the obstacles she overcame, and the courageous steps she took to live her life the way she was compelled to, is an inspiration daily as I travel along my own journey to liberty. Her story should be read and mulled by anyone who ever wondered: "Can I do what I have to do to be free?"
—Amy Rachel Kaplan, writer, editor, writing coach, author of Letters to Jimmie
* * * * *
ABOUT THE AUTHOR (see photos below on the back cover of her book)
(Eleutheria) Liberty (Kardules, Wright) Kovacs, Ph.D., MFT, MSN . . . is a self-actualized Greek-American octogenarian who grew up (and lived much of her adult life) between cultures. In spite of the drama and challenges, Libby led a life of admirable perseverance and courage to be all she could be. She not only changed generational patterns and went to nursing school and college at the price of being disowned by her father, but she went all the way to earn an MFT and MSN, and then at age 52, a Ph.D. She worked as a marriage and family therapist into her late seventies. On top of this, she raised three sons, sometimes single parenting, sometimes being caught in the middle with step-parent issues. And to feed her soul, for nineteen years she courageously went white-water rafting.
Liberty's Quest: The Compelling Story of the Wife and Mother of Two Poetry Pulitzer Prize Winners, James Wright and Franz Wright by Liberty Kovacs, Ph.D., MFT, MSN
SBN: 978-1-931741-96-5, Hard cover, 424 pages, 6 x 9, $29.95
