Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

The Escape Artist
The Escape Artist
The Escape Artist
Audiobook8 hours

The Escape Artist

Written by Helen Fremont

Narrated by Gabra Zackman

Rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars

4.5/5

()

About this audiobook

A luminous new memoir from the author of the critically acclaimed national bestseller After Long Silence, The Escape Artist has been lauded by New York Times bestselling 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.

Fremont 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 father’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—and 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.
LanguageEnglish
Release dateFeb 11, 2020
ISBN9781797103105
Author

Helen Fremont

In addition to The Escape Artist, Helen Fremont is the author of the national bestseller After Long Silence. Her works of fiction and nonfiction have appeared in numerous journals and anthologies, including Prize Stories: The O. Henry Awards, Ploughshares, and The Harvard Review. A graduate of the Warren Wilson MFA Program for Writers, she has been a teaching fellow at both Bread Loaf and the Radcliffe Institute. She worked as a public defender in Boston, where she now lives with her wife. You can find Helen online at HelenFremont.com.  

Related to The Escape Artist

Related audiobooks

Personal Memoirs For You

View More

Related articles

Reviews for The Escape Artist

Rating: 4.315789473684211 out of 5 stars
4.5/5

38 ratings3 reviews

What did you think?

Tap to rate

Review must be at least 10 words

  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    This was an intricate story of family secrets, abuse, and coming to terms with that and learning how to move on.
  • Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
    2/5
    The aggravating story of two privileged, spoiled, immature sisters who cant move ahead from their somewhat cold but good parents.
    Yes , their parents have a secret in their past, but this is the boring story of the sisters.
    It comes a time when the reader wants to shout "stop with this nonsense and enjoy your good life".
    What strikes me the most is that the author's sister is completely evil and crazy but is also a psychiatrist. I can't imagine her giving advice to any patient.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    VERY intense but well written story about how family secrets can cause unimaginable harm to future generations. For those of us having been born and growing up in the 1950’s, living so close to the end of WWII and it’s horrors, and being unaware of what our own parents lived through during that period, it just might be that, had we known more, some of our own crazy might then make more sense....

    Interesting to contemplate, although most of us will never be able to locate the perhaps many missing pieces of our own particular family puzzle.

    This is a good listen but, be warned, there is NOTHING cheerful about this story: it is heavy and intense and pretty darn depressing to boot.