In the Darkroom, Susan Faludi
In the Darkroom, Susan Faludi
List: $22.95 | Sale: $16.07
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In the Darkroom

Author: Susan Faludi

Narrator: Laurel Lefkow

Unabridged: 13 hr 46 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 08/23/2016


Synopsis

From the Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist and bestselling author of Backlash, comes In the Darkroom, an astonishing confrontation with the enigma of her father and the larger riddle of identity consuming our age.“In the summer of 2004 I set out to investigate someone I scarcely knew, my father. The project began with a grievance, the grievance of a daughter whose parent had absconded from her life. I was in pursuit of a scofflaw, an artful dodger who had skipped out on so many things―obligation, affection, culpability, contrition. I was preparing an indictment, amassing discovery for a trial. But somewhere along the line, the prosecutor became a witness.”So begins Susan Faludi’s extraordinary inquiry into the meaning of identity in the modern world and in her own haunted family saga. When the feminist writer learned her seventy-six-year-old father―long estranged and living in Hungary―had undergone sex reassignment surgery, that investigation would turn personal and urgent. How was this new parent who identified as “a complete woman now” connected to the silent, explosive, and ultimately violent father she had known?Faludi chases that mystery into the recesses of her childhood and her father’s many incarnations: American dad, Alpine mountaineer, swashbuckling adventurer in the Amazon outback, Jewish fugitive in Holocaust Budapest. When the author travels to Hungary to reunite with her father, she drops into a labyrinth of dark histories and dangerous politics in a country hell-bent on repressing its past and constructing a fanciful―and virulent―nationhood. The search for identity that has transfixed our century was proving as treacherous for nations as for individuals.Faludi’s struggle to come to grips with her father’s metamorphosis self takes her across borders―historical, political, religious, sexual—to bring her face to face with the question of the age: Is identity something you “choose,” or a thing you can’t escape?

About Susan Faludi

Susan Faludi is a Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist and the author of The Terror Dream, Stiffed, and Backlash, which won the National Book Critics Circle Award for Nonfiction. A former reporter for the Wall Street Journal, she has written for the New Yorker, the New York Times, Harper’s, and the Baffler, among other publications.

About Laurel Lefkow

Laurel Lefkow is an accomplished radio actress and winner of several AudioFile Earphones Awards for audiobook narration. Her many theater credits include Look Back in Anger, Little Foxes, The Heiress, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, and The Boy Next Door. On television she can be seen in A Class Act, Small Metal Jacket, and The Perfect Family.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Carol

This was an intriguing memoir that addresses issues of identity - religious, cultural, and gender. Through her endeavors to reconcile her estranged relationship with her Hungarian, Jewish father (who recently transitioned into a woman), the author delves into her father’s past experiences during the......more

For the most part harrowing, but with hilarious interludes, much needed comic relief. An extraordinary story of a extraordinarily complex person. I did not expect the rich content here about the Hungarian portion of the Shoah, content I’ve never come across before in my wide reading. Late in life, j......more

Goodreads review by Hank

This is a phenomenal work of narrative/investigative journalism and personal inquiry -- I cannot recommend it highly enough. I saw a review recently that said this book might seem implausible if it had been presented as a work of fiction (a novel), and all the more incredible since it is true. I agr......more


Quotes

“A gripping and honest personal journey.” Entertainment Weekly

“In this riveting book…Ms. Faludi unfolds her father’s story like the plot of a detective novel.” Wall Street Journal

“An absolute stunner of a memoir―probing, steel-nerved, moving in ways you’d never expect.” New York Times

“A mash-up of genres and themes about…questions of identity: Who―or what―makes us who and what we are?” Elle

“Remarkable, moving, and courageous.” Guardian (London)

“Narrator Laurel Lefkow shines most brightly when recounting the most difficult moments of Susan Faludi’s life… Lefkow captures moments of fragility and nuance…[and] ably handles the passages of exposition, giving extensive background on gender identity, anti-Semitism, and the Jewish experience in Europe during WWII. This immersive story about a father and daughter illuminates so much more.” AudioFile

“Penetrating and lucid…Faludi’s rich, arresting, and ultimately generous investigation of her father.” New York Times Book Review

“Astonishing, unique…should be essential reading.“ Irish Independent (Dublin)

“Extraordinary. Part riveting family memoir, part revelatory Holocaust history, but most of all a profound meditation on human identity.” National Book Review

“A remarkable story containing a set of parallel motifs that seem too absurdly perfect to be credible.” Slate


Awards

  • Kirkus Prize
  • Elle Magazine Pick
  • Harper’s Bazaar Pick
  • New York Times Book Review Top 10 Book of the Year
  • Library Journal Best Book
  • O Magazine Pick
  • ALA Notable Book
  • Literary Hub Pick
  • Electric Literature
  • New York Times Staff Pick
  • Pulitzer Prize