I have a hard time reviewing memoirs sometimes, because it's challenging to critique someone's life story (especially one filled with a lot of trauma). I also spent a lot of time wondering if I should have read Fremont's first memoir before I dove into this one. Fremont's story is incredibly moving and her past is a complicated one, but my biggest gripe was about the pacing. The book begins with Fremont finding out she's been officially disowned by her father (he literally says she's 'predeceased' in his will in order to cut her out). The majority of the book then consists of her describing the difficulties she had growing up in her family and how she struggled to climb out of her family's dysfunction. Only a tiny percentage of the book goes into what happened right before and after she finds out about her father's declaration. I think this book would have been a five-star read for me if less time had been spent on her college, early-adult years and more on how her relationships with her family functioned in recent years.

Fremont has such an evocative way with words and her family's story (interwoven with her own) is a tragic and complex one. However, I think some edits in the structure of this memoir would have made it even better.

This deeply moving memoir of a family in crisis, nearly destroyed by heartbreaking secrets, was riveting. I could not stop reading it.
As the author grew up, she was aware that there was something different about her family, something that caused baffling behaviors and explosive emotions, but she had no idea about the truth. The shocking, earthshaking revelations she would learn as an adult revealed the deep roots of these secrets.
This memoir is about her attempts to extricate herself from this difficult situation, to heal from the effects of her dysfunctional family history, and to create a satisfying and reasonably happy life in spite of it. Extremely well written, it draws the reader in and doesn’t let go. I highly recommend this.

I received an ARC of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

This book was interesting but also disturbing. There were so many secrets in this family - it’s no wonder the daughters suffered mentally and emotionally the way that they did.

This wasn't the book I was expecting to read. It was both less grounded in the parents narratives than I expected and more true to the perspective of the author as she moved through her own understanding of her family's story.

I am always intrigued by stories that talk about the Holocaust - my own grandma fled her home at 14 years old to avoid being persecuted. I also love when a story demonstrates the effect that secrets can have on a family. This book did both of those well...

But I also found the writing to be sooooo boring. I wasn't invested, I didn't care, I didn't connect. Unfortunately, this one was a bit of a bore for me.

This is a good memoir. Her story is full of deception, mental illness, and resilience when faced with many challenges. I would recommend this book.

This is basically a long rant about the author’s sister. It’s a sequel to an earlier book about the author’s family, Holocaust survivors. I found it unpleasant and depressing. Not recommended.

Helen Fremont artfully captures what most of cannot recall; youthful innocence and confusion. Her writing brings us into her bedroom, kitchen, living room as a child. It is hardly recognizable that we are reading an adult's perspective looking back. From her vantage point, everything makes sense ... even though it really doesn't and even though the reality is much more painful than our imagination. This book will make you remember what it was to be a child and be thankful for the good and the bad that comes along with growing up.

Secrets. Lies. PTSD. A contested will.

All of this should have made for a gripping memoir, exploring the fallout of author Hellen Fremont's first memoir, After Long Silence, which apparently led her addled family to disown her.

In the first book, Fremont explored the shocking revelation she and her sister Lana learned that their parents were Jews, survivors of World War II's depredations. For reasons never clearly articulated, her mother refused to acknowledge it, setting up a fractured family dynamic that led to more troubles. When that book was released, her mother didn't speak with Fremont for three years. And then her beloved father died and she received a copy fo the will with the codicil, disowning her, written four months before his death.

Really, this has the makings of an interesting look at a family that was held together by misery and not love. Instead, there is something plain and uninvolving and a touch "woe is me" to her wiring. It's a fast, breezy read but left me anxious to just get it over with.

Fremont and I are about a year apart, so my understanding of psychiatry during this period suggests the army of therapists involved in the drama did little to hello anyone, and yet Lana, clearly in need of constant therapy and medication, became a psychiatrist herself, undiagnosed.

Fremont dances around her coming out as a lesbian, and how Lana was one too, and a cousin, without exploring this or really tracing her one positive relationship in the novel, the romance, and marriage with Donna.

Something about the description intrigued me and I promised NetGalley a review in exchange. Here's the review but I can't honestly recommend this to any but the morbidly curious.

Helen Fremont's second memoir <i>The Escape Artist</i> tells the story of her dysfunctional family, and the trauma that binds them together as it pushes them apart. It is a recounting of Fremont's life growing up with parents whose secrets threatened to swallow them whole, her sister's struggle with mental illness and, subsequently, her own struggles with mental illness.

It is the story of a family, the good and the bad, an attempt to make sense of her own history. It is the story of a person trying to make themselves anew out of the ashes of someone else's destruction.

I found this memoir an excellently written, compelling read. I would recommend this book to people who like to read about the dynamics of other people's families, and fans of memoir in general.

Fascinating family story, many layers and decades of issues at play in”The Escape Artist” by Helen Fremont. Thank youNetGalley for the opportunity to read this ARC. The story bounces through timelines andshares a family story filled with and based on lies. The damage inflicted is measurable.

I think this book would have connected more if I had read the first book. The author keeps talking about the big secret, which is the fact that her parents who claimed to be Catholic were really holocaust survivors. Which doesn't seem to be this huge secret, but hearing the author speak I understand now how huge of a secret this was. The biggest part of this book is about Helen's sister, Lara, and their turbulent relationship. Growing up her sister tormented the family and then would have streaks where she would be seemingly normal. No matter how crazy her sister was, Helen's mother insisted that they act in public as if everything was normal. This relationship continues on as they grow up.

The Escape Artist is a sequential follow up to Helen Fremont’s memoir that was published 20 years ago. Without having read the first novel, I jumped into this story blind. This is a witty, emotional look into Helen’s life growing up through the 60’s and into current times in Schenectady, NY. The younger of two sisters born to a mother and father who have spent most of their adult lives burying the truths of their past, Helen is left largely in the dark unable to explain the volatility in the home. Growing up in a home with parents living a lie and an emotionally volatile sister leaves young Helen to bear the scars of her challenged upbringing. The fact that she and her sister managed to grow up into functional members of society is by itself a small miracle. This is written with an eloquence that dances around the delicate subject of abject family disfunction. No stranger to family drama myself, I feel like there is an escape artist in all of us. Thank you to Netgalley for the advanced copy in exchange for an honest review.

Well written book that reveals the author's challenges in a dysfunctional family. Frank look at how "secrets keep us sick," and how the family copes with mental illness.

I didn't really enjoy this book. It felt like the writer was trying very hard to be "mysterious" and kind of skip around, which can work in some cases, but not in this one.

Very well-written memoir about the author growing up in a dysfunctional family full of mental illness and big-time secrets. Raised as a Catholic, her discovery that her parents and aunt were instead Jewish holocaust survivors was the subject of her first book — After Long Silence (1999). The Escape Artist starts with the aftermath of the previous work — estrangement from her family and an invitation to her father’s funeral only to find that she had been cut out of his will with the phrase “as if she had predeceased me.” The narrative bounces between 1965 and the present (well-labeled and easy to follow) and follows the wild dynamics of a sister who is alternately her best friend and a foaming-at-the-mouth crazy person vowing to kill her. While the first book uncovers the Catholic / Jewish secret, this book uncovers a second large family secret (which truthfully is not the main purpose of the book and is not over dramatized in any way — it’s just something we find out / figure out near the end). The primary focus is on her relationship with the family, particularly her sister, and her own slow self-discovery of the person she wants to be.

I enjoyed reading this book — it was well-written and the characters were deeply portrayed — intentionally from the author’s perspective. Exactly my kind of memoir where the author makes plain her interior logic, experiences, and even her own doubt as to what actually happened vs what she remembers happening. My only complaint might be that it was a tad too long — I was ready to be done about 40 pages from the end. I admit that there is also something that disturbs me about one person writing a memoir that exposes the secrets of others. There was a good reason her family did not want people to know they were Jewish and I can see being equally unhappy about the family exposure in this book.

Helen Fremont's memoir The Escape Artist, is the kind of book that draws you in and demands that you pay attention. You know the kind, you can't put it down because you want to know what happens next.

Full Disclosure: I have not read the previous book, but I found this one to be able to stand alone- although I may go back and read the other.

In this memoir Helen Fremont recounts her family history and how it has impacted the lives of not only herself but also her mother, father and sister. She beautifully describes how trauma impacts our ability to relate with the world around us. This is a book about trauma, mental illness and our willingness to engage with the healing our family needs.

It is also a clear picture into the Fremont's hurting heart. As I read the pages of this book I felt how unresolved her pain is here. I hope that she finds healing and she is able to resolve her relationship with her sister. This is one of the most courageous books I have read in recent years.

The publisher provided an ARC through Netgalley. My honest thoughts and opinions are reflected in this review.

The Escape Artist by Helen Fremont is a fascinating look at a family that has been greatly effected by the war, secrets, and mental illness. It is the story of a family and the interactions between them. There is also interaction with an aunt and uncle that reside in Italy. This story is nonfiction and the heartbreak felt by all family members is so very sad. The mother suffers from depression and both daughters suffer from mental illness. This family’s dysfunction reaches far and wide. I would highly recommend reading this novel. Insight into other families challenges gives the reader an appreciation for the heartbreak of others. I received this novel from Simon and Schuster and netgalley in exchange for a fair and honest review.

Fantastic. For me, this was a white-knuckle read. What would be the consequences of telling all? What are the consequences of telling MORE? For dysfunctional siblings everywhere.

Helen Fremont's story is incredible, though at times, difficult read. You often see books and memoirs described as "searing" and I don't think I ever really understood that until I read this one. "The Escape Artist' unravels two generations of family secrets and their devastating consequences. It was so engrossing that before I even finished it, I'd ordered Fremont's first memoir 'After Long Silence." I'm looking forward to comparing the two.

Thanks to the publisher for my free copy of 'The Escape Artist'.