Helen Fremont
Author of After Long Silence
Works by Helen Fremont
Associated Works
Tagged
Common Knowledge
- Gender
- female
- Education
- Wellesley College
Boston University School of Law
Warren Wilson College MFA Program for Writers - Occupations
- lawyer
memoirist - Organizations
- Brandeis University
Marlboro Review
Harvard University
Emerson College
Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study
Bread Loaf Writers' Conference (show all 7)
Committee for Public Counsel Services - Agent
- Elise Goodman
Arnold Goodman
Gail Hochman - Short biography
- From Publishers Weekly: Raised Roman Catholic in a Michigan suburb, Helen Fremont knew that her parents had been in concentration camps. Her Polish-born mother Batya was interned in fascist Italy, and her Hungarian-born father Kovik was sentenced to life in the Soviet gulag. But her parents refused to talk about their past, and they never let on that they had been born Jews. As adults, Fremont, a Boston lawyer and public defender, and her sister, Lara, a psychiatrist, pieced together their parents' hidden past by examining archives and tracking down Holocaust survivors. The resulting book, After Long Silence: A Memoir, was published in 1999.
- Nationality
- USA
- Places of residence
- Boston, Massachusetts, USA
- Associated Place (for map)
- Massachusetts, USA
Members
Reviews
In After Long Silence, Fremont's first book, she documented the secret lives and identities her parents had hidden after surviving the Holocaust and immigrating to the U.S. With this memoir, she shifts her focus to her own life and experiences, and how her parents' emotional wounds psychologically and severely impacted her and her sister during their childhoods.
This story was so messed up, but like the proverbial train wreck I couldn't look away. It absolutely demonstrates the validity and show more seriousness of generational trauma. Though I'm tempted to give credence to Fremont as the author, at times I found myself wondering whose version of reality was actually the truth. At the end, I really hoped Fremont is OK and that she's somehow found peace. (Also I'd love to see the results of a DNA test with Renzo!). show less
This story was so messed up, but like the proverbial train wreck I couldn't look away. It absolutely demonstrates the validity and show more seriousness of generational trauma. Though I'm tempted to give credence to Fremont as the author, at times I found myself wondering whose version of reality was actually the truth. At the end, I really hoped Fremont is OK and that she's somehow found peace. (Also I'd love to see the results of a DNA test with Renzo!). show less
I’ve read a lot of stories about the Shoah (the Holocaust), but never one quite like the story of Helen Fremont’s family. Her book, After Long Silence: A Memoir, is truly a blend of genres, regardless of the title.
Fremont is of my generation, but her parents were European refugees who came to the United States after WWII. To everyone outside the family they were a nice Polish-American Catholic family. Inside the nuclear family, they also appeared to be Catholics of Polish ancestry.
The show more book is about the story Helen discovers when she is an adult. Her parents were actually Jews who had survived the horrors of the Holocaust. They won’t admit it, though–at least not until Helen hounds them for the truth.
From the opening, the main question Helen seeks to answer in the book is “What really happened to my parents during the war years?” Eventually that question turns into “Why do they still want to keep the secret?”
Fremont alternates her story with that of both her parents before and during and right after the war. Once the story of her parents’ paths to survival begins in earnest, Fremont has me completely hooked. Those chapters/sections are to me the essence of the book–and they truly would not be memoir if they were not framed within a memoir. They read like a Holocaust biography or novel–gripping and disturbing. What her parents did to survive shows how far the human spirit and personality can stretch and mold.
The sections about Fremont’s parents’ lives are imagined stories based upon Fremont’s research.It makes sense that the stories of her parents overshadows Fremont’s own story since the huge secret her parents imposed on their family overshadowed Fremont’s life. But at the end of the book she feels independent of them. This is important because it means she can differentiate herself as an individual adult. show less
Fremont is of my generation, but her parents were European refugees who came to the United States after WWII. To everyone outside the family they were a nice Polish-American Catholic family. Inside the nuclear family, they also appeared to be Catholics of Polish ancestry.
The show more book is about the story Helen discovers when she is an adult. Her parents were actually Jews who had survived the horrors of the Holocaust. They won’t admit it, though–at least not until Helen hounds them for the truth.
From the opening, the main question Helen seeks to answer in the book is “What really happened to my parents during the war years?” Eventually that question turns into “Why do they still want to keep the secret?”
Fremont alternates her story with that of both her parents before and during and right after the war. Once the story of her parents’ paths to survival begins in earnest, Fremont has me completely hooked. Those chapters/sections are to me the essence of the book–and they truly would not be memoir if they were not framed within a memoir. They read like a Holocaust biography or novel–gripping and disturbing. What her parents did to survive shows how far the human spirit and personality can stretch and mold.
The sections about Fremont’s parents’ lives are imagined stories based upon Fremont’s research.It makes sense that the stories of her parents overshadows Fremont’s own story since the huge secret her parents imposed on their family overshadowed Fremont’s life. But at the end of the book she feels independent of them. This is important because it means she can differentiate herself as an individual adult. show less
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 show more 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. show less
On page 222, Helen declares to sister Lara: “Our family is a disaster. The Holocaust didn’t just affect mom and dad; it affected all of us!”
While every family has its own modicum of dysfunction, this family had more than their share. There were times when things seem ordinary and well adjusted. No one outside truly knows what happens behind closed doors. Still, the family was knit together by love or something like that
The Escape Artist, Helen Fremont comes after the publication of her show more first memoir entitled, After Long Silence. then, The Escape Artist defines her family and their reactions to the writing and publicising the family secrets.
I wasn’t aware there was a first book until I read this one and it does work as a stand-alone, although I do plan to read her prequel. As I read the words in the book, seemed the author herself was attempting to make sense of her life by putting it in writing. this must have been a huge outlet for Helen.
As the book opens, you learn the ending of the story where Helen’s mother legally “kills” her off like a character simply written out of a series and then listed as having predeceased her father in a codicil to his will.
if you wish to read a happy story, put this one down. If you wish to read a raw account of life as it happens, this book is fascinating.
Lara and Helen are about my age now and I’d love to know how their lives are progressing. I was happy they found partners to marry and wish them great happiness, they deserve. show less
While every family has its own modicum of dysfunction, this family had more than their share. There were times when things seem ordinary and well adjusted. No one outside truly knows what happens behind closed doors. Still, the family was knit together by love or something like that
The Escape Artist, Helen Fremont comes after the publication of her show more first memoir entitled, After Long Silence. then, The Escape Artist defines her family and their reactions to the writing and publicising the family secrets.
I wasn’t aware there was a first book until I read this one and it does work as a stand-alone, although I do plan to read her prequel. As I read the words in the book, seemed the author herself was attempting to make sense of her life by putting it in writing. this must have been a huge outlet for Helen.
As the book opens, you learn the ending of the story where Helen’s mother legally “kills” her off like a character simply written out of a series and then listed as having predeceased her father in a codicil to his will.
if you wish to read a happy story, put this one down. If you wish to read a raw account of life as it happens, this book is fascinating.
Lara and Helen are about my age now and I’d love to know how their lives are progressing. I was happy they found partners to marry and wish them great happiness, they deserve. show less
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Statistics
- Works
- 5
- Also by
- 1
- Members
- 702
- Popularity
- #36,076
- Rating
- 3.7
- Reviews
- 24
- ISBNs
- 20
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- 2