The Escape Artist
Written by Helen Fremont
Narrated by Gabra Zackman
4.5/5
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About this audiobook
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.
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.
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Reviews for The Escape Artist
38 ratings3 reviews
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5This 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 stars2/5The 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 stars4/5VERY 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.