Publishers Weekly
11/18/2019
In this clear-eyed memoir, former Obama speech writer Frankel portrays family members shattered by the Holocaust, including his own. As a child in the 1980s, Frankel frequently talked with his mother’s parents, Holocaust survivors Rivkah (Bubbie) and Abraham (Zayde), about how they assumed new identities after the war, among other open secrets: “Secrets are something of a family tradition,” he notes. When Frankel was a young adult, his mother became increasing unstable, and, he observes, “I couldn’t shake the feeling that Mom’s life, and my own, had been shaped by the Holocaust.” He decided to study Holocaust trauma theories, in part to understand what he believed to be the “soul wounds” she’d inherited. Frankel’s digging into his mother’s past eventually revealed the “toxic secret” that his biological father was a family friend, and that he was the product of an affair. As Frankel hurls head-first into an identity crisis, he feels as if his “whole life had been a lie”; traumatized, he “suddenly felt a strange new kinship with Bubbie and Zayde.” He’s overtaken by rage and debilitating anxiety attacks; the healing commenced only as he began to understand his paternal relationships and his mother’s fragile mental state. Frankel’s candid, evenhanded memoir affectingly depicts a son’s struggle to understand himself and his family history. (Oct.)
From the Publisher
"The Survivors considers three generations of a family and the author's own search for identity.... In processing his feelings, [Frankel] finds himself betraying family secrets, stirring anxieties that haven’t yet fully subsided. But, in the end, he discovers something wonderful: that the people he most treasured were even more loving than he had dared imagine.” — Chicago Tribune
“Frankel’s candid, evenhanded memoir affectingly depicts a son’s struggle to understand himself and his family history.” — Publishers Weekly
"Frankel could have written several books from all this rich material." — Washington Post
“Frankel was part of Barack Obama’s speechwriting team from the beginning of Obama’s presidential campaign through his first term in the White House. But Frankel’s memoir, while it offers glimpses of his interactions with Obama and of his time in government, is about something far more personal than his career....Through the rest of the book, Frankel explores the impact of his grandparents’ experiences on his mother and has to confront a revelation about his parents that changes his understanding of his own identity.” — New York Times Book Review
“…Frankel discovered the difference between the bond of blood and the beauty of love…a personal and painful story…a restorative pathway to understanding, acceptance, forgiveness and love.” — The Times of Israel
“By the end of The Survivors, we understand that the title includes Frankel himself. His survival comes at a steep price: betraying family secrets, stirring anxieties that haven’t yet fully subsided. To his credit, Frankel manages to make us shed genuine tears along the way – not because human nature is perfidious but because, sometimes, it can be good.” — Forward
“…gripping…captivating work.” — Los Angeles Review of Books
“A unique addition to the literature of personal accounts that keep the memory of the Holocaust alive at a time when it is ‘getting harder to teach young people about [it] because the most compelling instructors—survivors—are all passing away.’ An emotionally powerful multigenerational memoir.” — Kirkus Reviews
“ The stories Adam shares with us in THE SURVIVORS are about the ways the past can haunt our future, the resilience that can be found on the other side of trauma, and the good that can come from things that are unspeakably bad. ” — Bookreporter.com
“Readers of biography, history, and politics, and those interested in the effects of trauma on subsequent generations, will appreciate this thoughtful book.” — Library Journal
“I was blown away by The Survivors. Totally. And I promise you will be, too. It’s a wrenching, liberating, and exhilarating emotional journey through the darkest and most nurturing of all forests: family. Beautifully written and emotionally fearless, The Survivors made me cry at the end.” — Walter Isaacson
“The Survivors is an astonishingly beautiful and profoundly moving book. Frankel’s haunting search to unravel the mysteries of his family is so compelling that it reads like a fine novel.” — Doris Kearns Goodwin
“At once heart-wrenching and grippingly suspenseful, Adam Frankel’s memoir explores, in immensely personal terms, the legacy of the Holocaust, as well as the sorrow, grit, and character of his loved ones who survived it. By sharing his own struggle to confront the secrets of the past, Frankel above all illuminates the transcendent, world-changing power of family love.” — Samantha Power
“Brilliantly, achingly told, The Survivors is a painful, shocking and, ultimately, inspiring story of family trauma, betrayal and forgiveness.” — David Axelrod
“Adam Frankel has brought us a lovely, stark, powerful, beautifully written, revelatory and deeply emotional memoir with a historical framework that extends from the Holocaust to John F. Kennedy and the world of Barack Obama. Frankel’s breathtaking book has many important lessons for all of us and deserves to be widely read.” — Michael Beschloss
Los Angeles Review of Books
…gripping…captivating work.
Forward
By the end of The Survivors, we understand that the title includes Frankel himself. His survival comes at a steep price: betraying family secrets, stirring anxieties that haven’t yet fully subsided. To his credit, Frankel manages to make us shed genuine tears along the way – not because human nature is perfidious but because, sometimes, it can be good.
The Times of Israel
…Frankel discovered the difference between the bond of blood and the beauty of love…a personal and painful story…a restorative pathway to understanding, acceptance, forgiveness and love.
New York Times Book Review
Frankel was part of Barack Obama’s speechwriting team from the beginning of Obama’s presidential campaign through his first term in the White House. But Frankel’s memoir, while it offers glimpses of his interactions with Obama and of his time in government, is about something far more personal than his career....Through the rest of the book, Frankel explores the impact of his grandparents’ experiences on his mother and has to confront a revelation about his parents that changes his understanding of his own identity.”
Chicago Tribune
"The Survivors considers three generations of a family and the author's own search for identity.... In processing his feelings, [Frankel] finds himself betraying family secrets, stirring anxieties that haven’t yet fully subsided. But, in the end, he discovers something wonderful: that the people he most treasured were even more loving than he had dared imagine.”
Washington Post
"Frankel could have written several books from all this rich material."
Bookreporter.com
The stories Adam shares with us in THE SURVIVORS are about the ways the past can haunt our future, the resilience that can be found on the other side of trauma, and the good that can come from things that are unspeakably bad.
Doris Kearns Goodwin
The Survivors is an astonishingly beautiful and profoundly moving book. Frankel’s haunting search to unravel the mysteries of his family is so compelling that it reads like a fine novel.
Samantha Power
At once heart-wrenching and grippingly suspenseful, Adam Frankel’s memoir explores, in immensely personal terms, the legacy of the Holocaust, as well as the sorrow, grit, and character of his loved ones who survived it. By sharing his own struggle to confront the secrets of the past, Frankel above all illuminates the transcendent, world-changing power of family love.
David Axelrod
Brilliantly, achingly told, The Survivors is a painful, shocking and, ultimately, inspiring story of family trauma, betrayal and forgiveness.
Walter Isaacson
I was blown away by The Survivors. Totally. And I promise you will be, too. It’s a wrenching, liberating, and exhilarating emotional journey through the darkest and most nurturing of all forests: family. Beautifully written and emotionally fearless, The Survivors made me cry at the end.
Michael Beschloss
Adam Frankel has brought us a lovely, stark, powerful, beautifully written, revelatory and deeply emotional memoir with a historical framework that extends from the Holocaust to John F. Kennedy and the world of Barack Obama. Frankel’s breathtaking book has many important lessons for all of us and deserves to be widely read.
Washington Post
"Frankel could have written several books from all this rich material."
Chicago Tribune
"The Survivors considers three generations of a family and the author's own search for identity.... In processing his feelings, [Frankel] finds himself betraying family secrets, stirring anxieties that haven’t yet fully subsided. But, in the end, he discovers something wonderful: that the people he most treasured were even more loving than he had dared imagine.”
Kirkus Reviews
2019-08-18
A debut memoir about "the ways the trauma of the Holocaust has reverberated through the generations of [the author's] family."
Frankel, a former speechwriter for Barack Obama, focuses first on his maternal grandparents, who not only managed to survive the Nazi death camps, but also thrived, on the surface at least, after their arrival in the United States a few years after the end of World War II. They settled in New Haven, Connecticut, where they ran a jewelry store specializing in watch repair. As the author learned incremental details about their experiences, his respect and adoration for his grandparents only grew. The dominant character in the family chronicle, however, is Frankel's mother, Ellen, a functional career woman but emotionally unstable individual. Ellen grew up understandably marked by the survival saga of her parents, and Frankel speculates about how being the devoted daughter of Holocaust survivors affected Ellen. "All of the drama, the volatility, hardly seemed Mom's fault," he writes. "She was, I knew, at the mercy of her emotions, subject to their fickle swings." The author also looks inward to determine what his family's experiences mean for him as a Jew growing up in a less perilous environment. For students of American politics and history, Frankel's apprenticeship with John F. Kennedy confidant Ted Sorensen and later work for Obama provide welcome relief from the otherwise relentless emotional roller coaster. Frankel's marriage and fatherhood add further poignancy to the narrative, and his well-delineated portraits of his cousins, aunts, uncles, and their extended families provide helpful context to the dramatic family saga. It's a unique addition to the literature of personal accounts that keep the memory of the Holocaust alive at a time when it is "getting harder to teach young people about [it] because the most compelling instructors—survivors—are all passing away."
An emotionally powerful multigenerational memoir.
