Laurinel Owen moved to Long Island from South Africa. She was principal cellist with the National Symphony Orchestra in Johannesburg having arrived there via Mexico City and Edinburgh where she played in major ensembles. Musical adventures have taken her throughout much of the US, Europe, South America, southern Africa and China. She is the artistic director of South Country Concerts, a chamber music series. Laurinel also writes and has had over 130 articles and a biography of cellist Bernard Greenhouse published. Her memoir, Strings Attached; Married to a Bigamist with Nazi Ties will come out in July 2024 published by Koehler Books.
Strings Attached
Married to a Bigamist with Nazi Ties
Scheduled to be released July 2024
She arrived with her cello on Christmas Day in apartheid South Africa. From the stage she saw him. They met and were rarely apart. It was bliss until he invited her to the family vacation home. She knocked, and his wife opened the door. He followed her back to America where they married and lived together for 22 years. Upon his death his daughter announced, “My parents were never divorced.”
He was a bigamist, who had bilked her of thousands of dollars, and was the son of a Nazi murderer who fled the U.S. because the FBI accused him of being Head of the American Gestapo.
“Strings Attached” reveals the author’s self-deception and the high price she paid for her denial. Far worse than the lawsuit on three continents was the shame, guilt and anxiety over her part in this real-life drama. Though music was an anchor, she healed through various traditional and nontraditional modalities.
Her story will inspire anyone who has loved, been betrayed, and is seeking recovery and support.