The Escape Artist
In the tradition of Alison Bechdel’s Fun Home or 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 penchant for keeping their lives neatly, even obsessively compartmentalized, and 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, Fremont 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.
In a family devoted to hiding the truth, Fremont learns the truth is the one thing that can set you free. Scorching, witty, and ultimately redemptive, The Escape Artist is a powerful contribution to the memoir shelf.
Reviews
"The Escape Artist does what the best memoirs do
by forcing readers out of their own comfy shoes and into those of
another human being. By the time Helen Fremont returned me to my own
life at book's end, I found it had been both shaken and expanded by
hers. Isn't this why we read?" -- Richard Russo, Pulitzer Prize-winning
author of Chances Are… and Empire Falls
“Fremont has created a humane, honest, eviscerating but entertaining exploration of intimate betrayal, the legacy of secrets and the high cost of truth-telling. I was gripped by this powerful and utterly engrossing memoir and remain haunted by the characters and feelings it aroused. From what was taken away, Fremont has given to all of us.” -- George Hodgman, New York Times bestselling author of Bettyville
“[A] wrenching, riveting memoir. . . . With hard-won clarity and compassion, Fremont shows herself to be a teller of complex truths and a literary artist.” -- Margo Jefferson, New York Times bestselling and NBCC Award winning author of Negroland
“A stunner of a family memoir—a harrowing, sometimes mordantly funny account of the wages of secrecy bred of war and dislocation. . . . A page-turner of uncommon valor.” -- Patricia Hampl, bestselling author of The Art of the Wasted Day and A Romantic Education
“Powerful . . . The Escape Artist is a psychological thriller as well as a shattering account of growing up in a family that has survived genocide and refuse to acknowledge it.” -- Helen Epstein, bestselling author of Children of the Holocaust and The Long Half-Lives of Love and Trauma
“What an extraordinary memoir this is. The brute force of history casts its shadow on the intimate tangle of family life, in a story that is riveting to read. Its mysteries are contemplated so beautifully, I felt it was a book that would stay with me for a very long time.” -- Joan Silber, NBCC and Pen/Faulkner Award–winning author of Improvement
ALSO BY HELEN FREMONT
After Long Silence
"To this day, I don't even know what my mother's real name is."
Helen Fremont was raised as a Roman Catholic. It wasn't until she was an adult, practicing law in Boston, that she discovered her parents were Jewish--Holocaust survivors living invented lives. Not even their names were their own. In this powerful memoir, Helen Fremont delves into the secrets that held her family in a bond of silence for more than four decades, recounting with heartbreaking clarity a remarkable tale of survival, as vivid as fiction but with the resonance of truth.
Driven to uncover their roots, Fremont and her sister pieced together an astonishing story: of Siberian Gulags and Italian royalty, of concentration camps and buried lives. After Long Silence is about the devastating price of hiding the truth; about families; about the steps we take, foolish or wise, to protect ourselves and our loved ones. No one who reads this book can be unmoved, or fail to understand the seductive, damaging power of secrets.
What Fremont and her sister discover is an astonishing story: one of Siberian gulags and Italian royalty, of concentration camps and buried lives. AFTER LONG SILENCE is about the devastating price of hiding the truth; about families; about the steps we take, foolish or wise, to protect ourselves and our loved ones. No one who reads this book can be unmoved, or fail to understand the seductive, damaging power of secrets.
Helen Fremont
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 Bread Loaf and a teaching fellow at the Radcliffe Institute. From 1999–2008 she was a Scholar in the Women’s Studies Research Center Scholars Program at Brandeis University. She works as a public defender and lives with her wife in Boston.
https://www.goodreads.com/author/quotes/47405.Helen_Fremont
“Fremont has created a humane, honest, eviscerating but entertaining exploration of intimate betrayal, the legacy of secrets and the high cost of truth-telling. I was gripped by this powerful and utterly engrossing memoir and remain haunted by the characters and feelings it aroused. From what was taken away, Fremont has given to all of us.” -- George Hodgman, New York Times bestselling author of Bettyville
“[A] wrenching, riveting memoir. . . . With hard-won clarity and compassion, Fremont shows herself to be a teller of complex truths and a literary artist.” -- Margo Jefferson, New York Times bestselling and NBCC Award winning author of Negroland
“A stunner of a family memoir—a harrowing, sometimes mordantly funny account of the wages of secrecy bred of war and dislocation. . . . A page-turner of uncommon valor.” -- Patricia Hampl, bestselling author of The Art of the Wasted Day and A Romantic Education
“Powerful . . . The Escape Artist is a psychological thriller as well as a shattering account of growing up in a family that has survived genocide and refuse to acknowledge it.” -- Helen Epstein, bestselling author of Children of the Holocaust and The Long Half-Lives of Love and Trauma
“What an extraordinary memoir this is. The brute force of history casts its shadow on the intimate tangle of family life, in a story that is riveting to read. Its mysteries are contemplated so beautifully, I felt it was a book that would stay with me for a very long time.” -- Joan Silber, NBCC and Pen/Faulkner Award–winning author of Improvement
ALSO BY HELEN FREMONT
After Long Silence
"To this day, I don't even know what my mother's real name is."
Helen Fremont was raised as a Roman Catholic. It wasn't until she was an adult, practicing law in Boston, that she discovered her parents were Jewish--Holocaust survivors living invented lives. Not even their names were their own. In this powerful memoir, Helen Fremont delves into the secrets that held her family in a bond of silence for more than four decades, recounting with heartbreaking clarity a remarkable tale of survival, as vivid as fiction but with the resonance of truth.
Driven to uncover their roots, Fremont and her sister pieced together an astonishing story: of Siberian Gulags and Italian royalty, of concentration camps and buried lives. After Long Silence is about the devastating price of hiding the truth; about families; about the steps we take, foolish or wise, to protect ourselves and our loved ones. No one who reads this book can be unmoved, or fail to understand the seductive, damaging power of secrets.
What Fremont and her sister discover is an astonishing story: one of Siberian gulags and Italian royalty, of concentration camps and buried lives. AFTER LONG SILENCE is about the devastating price of hiding the truth; about families; about the steps we take, foolish or wise, to protect ourselves and our loved ones. No one who reads this book can be unmoved, or fail to understand the seductive, damaging power of secrets.
Reviews
“Fascinating . . . A tragic saga, but at the same time it often reads like a thriller filled with acts of extraordinary courage, descriptions of dangerous journeys and a series of secret identities.”—Chicago Tribune
Helen Fremont
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 Bread Loaf and a teaching fellow at the Radcliffe Institute. From 1999–2008 she was a Scholar in the Women’s Studies Research Center Scholars Program at Brandeis University. She works as a public defender and lives with her wife in Boston.
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