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The Escape Artist

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The Escape Artist

Written by: Helen Fremont
Narrated by: Gabra Zackman
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About this listen

A luminous new memoir from the author of the critically acclaimed national best seller After Long Silence, The Escape Artist has been lauded by New York Times best-selling author Mary Karr as “beautifully written, honest, and psychologically astute. A must-read”.

In the tradition of Alison Bechdel’s Fun Home and George Hodgman’s Bettyville, Fremont writes with wit and candor about growing up in a household held together by a powerful glue: secrets. Her parents, profoundly affected by their memories of the Holocaust, pass on to both Helen and her older sister a zealous determination to protect themselves from what they see as danger from the outside world.

She delves deeply into the family dynamic that produced such a startling devotion to secret keeping, beginning with the painful and unexpected discovery that she has been disinherited in her mother’s will. In scenes that are frank, moving, and often surprisingly funny, she writes about growing up in such an intemperate household, with parents who pretended to be Catholics but were really Jews - survivors of Nazi-occupied Poland. She shares tales of family therapy sessions, disordered eating, her sister’s frequently unhinged meltdowns, and her own romantic misadventures as she tries to sort out her sexual identity.

Searching, poignant, and ultimately redemptive, The Escape Artist is a powerful contribution to the memoir shelf.

©2020 Helen Fremont (P)2020 Simon & Schuster Audio
Biographies & Memoirs Parenting & Families Relationships Funny
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Great

The sample audio clip for this book drew me in, and I had to know the story. One of the most intriguing memoirs I have read… one really cannot imagine the complexity of other people’s lives. I only wish that Audible had the author’s earlier book, After Great Silence, as I would have listened to it first. Having said that, it has a different focus so it didn’t feel like something was missing (relevant bits of the other book, and the writing of it, were interwoven).

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