Slow Motion, Dani Shapiro
Slow Motion, Dani Shapiro
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Slow Motion
A Memoir of a Life Rescued by Tragedy

Author: Dani Shapiro

Narrator: Dani Shapiro

Unabridged: 8 hr 10 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 09/15/2020


Synopsis

From one of the most gifted writers of her generation comes the harrowing and exquisitely written true story of how a family tragedy saved her life.

Dani Shapiro was a young girl from a deeply religious home who became the girlfriend of a famous and flamboyant married attorney—her best friend's stepfather. The moment Lenny Klein entered her life, everything changed: she dropped out of college, began to drink heavily, and became estranged from her family and friends. But then the  phone call came. There had been an accident on a snowy road near her family's home in New Jersey, and both her parents lay hospitalized in critical condition. This haunting memoir traces her journey back into the world she had left behind. At a time when she was barely able to take care of herself, she was faced with the terrifying task of taking care of two people who needed her desperately.

Dani Shapiro charts a riveting emotional course as she retraces her isolated, overprotected Orthodox Jewish childhood in an anti-Semitic suburb, and draws the connections between that childhood and her inevitable rebellion and self-destructiveness. She tells of a life nearly ruined by the gift of  beauty, and then saved by the worst thing imaginable. This is a beautiful and unforgettable memoir of a life utterly transformed by tragedy.

About Dani Shapiro

Dani Shapiro's most recent books include Family History and Slow Motion. Her work has appeared in The New Yorker; Granta; Elle; O, The Oprah Magazine; and Ploughshares, and has been broadcast on National Public Radio. She is currently a visiting writer at Wesleyan University and lives in Litchfield County, Connecticut.


Reviews

Goodreads review by TC on March 10, 2012

A well-written memoir of a NYC-area Jewish woman starting her adulthood in the 80's as a coked-out, bulimic, alcoholic, college-dropout mistress of an older, powerful, and well-known lawyer whose career and persona defined 80's excesses (here called "Lenny Klein," but without doubt the infamous disg......more

Goodreads review by Ellenjsmellen on April 23, 2009

Could not put this down. What a story. Anybody else a Dani Shapiro fan? I'm going to read Picturing the Wreck next.......more

Goodreads review by Pam on December 08, 2017

I've been on a Dani Shapiro jag... Ever since I read Hourglass this summer, I've been obsessed. I read Devotion this fall, and now this, which is my fave of hers so far. Her writing is so sharp and vivid. It engages all the senses AND compels you to keep reading to find out what happens next. What e......more

Goodreads review by Joan on September 15, 2011

This book redeemed itself. Maybe only a person who has reformed can be so honest about how awful she once was (a person I found highly irritating). Appropriately, the narrative focuses on the parents' accident and the transformation that brought about in the writer. I wish, however, more detail abou......more

Goodreads review by Stefanie on May 07, 2019

Dani Shapiro is one of the best memoirists I’ve read. I’m always amazed at what people are willing to share with the world. It felt like she held nothing back.......more