Blow your house down : a story of family, feminism, and treason

A Good Morning America Recommended Book • A BuzzFeed Most Anticipated Book of the Year • A Lit Hub Most Anticipated Book of the Year • A Rumpus Most Anticipated Book of the Year • A Bustle Most Anticipated Book of the Month "A pathbreaking feminist manifesto, impossible to put down or dismiss. Gina Frangello tells the morally complex story of her adulterous relationship with a lover and her shortcomings as a mother, and in doing so, highlights the forces that shaped, silenced, and shamed her: everyday misogyny, puritanical expectations regarding female sexuality and maternal sacrifice, and male oppression." —Adrienne Brodeur, author of Wild Game Gina Frangello spent her early adulthood trying to outrun a youth marked by poverty and violence. Now a long-married wife and devoted mother, the better life she carefully built is emotionally upended by the death of her closest friend. Soon, awakened to fault lines in her troubled marriage, Frangello is caught up in a recklessly passionate affair, leading a double life while continuing to project the image of the perfect family. When her secrets are finally uncovered, both her home and her identity will implode, testing the limits of desire, responsibility, love, and forgiveness. Blow Your House Down is a powerful testimony about the ways our culture seeks to cage women in traditional narratives of self-sacrifice and erasure. Frangello uses her personal story to examine the place of women in contemporary society: the violence they experience, the rage they suppress, the ways their bodies often reveal what they cannot say aloud, and finally, what it means to transgress "being good" in order to reclaim your own life. "Gina Frangello is a long-married fortysomething devoted mom when her life is turned upside down by the sudden death of her closest friend. Worn down from years of caregiving both her elderly parents and three kids, Gina starts to interrogate her own mortality and what she once longed for as a younger woman : a kind of sexual, romantic and artistic intensity radically at odds with her comfortable but emotionally stagnant marriage. Falling into a passionate affair with a writer/musician, Gina begins living a shocking double life while continuing to outwardly project the image of having a "perfect family." As her parallel worlds begin to dangerously intersect, she makes the risky choice to leave her marriage and security in order to take a chance at finally becoming fully herself, midlife. However, when only months into her separation, Gina is diagnosed with breast cancer, her father dies, her divorce grows increasingly contentious and menacing, and her lover falls into a deep clinical depression, an inevitable breaking point approaches, revealing the irrevocable stakes of giving up everything for love, as well as what it means to be a woman in the contemporary American landscape. Examining pivotal moments in a complex family system about to implode, Blow Your House Down is about what happens when a woman who has been very good at playing all the roles society expects of her suddenly refuses to continue being the person her family and friends think they know. In a note from the author to her writing group, she wrote: "If we are all supposed to write the book we most need to read, then this is the book I wish I had had in front of me during the years my marriage was falling apart, the years I gave everything in me to my ailing parents and young children and angry husband until there seemed nothing left, the years I began a wildly selfish and euphoric affair that seemed to save me, the years I decided to leave my marriage but leaving ended up looking nothing like escape and instead like the end of the world, and the years that I was sick and in pain and having body parts removed at the speed of light and not knowing whether illness would destroy any new beginning I had fought so hard to find. This is the book I was so hungrily looking for, with all its brutality and grief and guilt and desire but didn't find. I hold in my head a woman who needs this book to save her own life.""-- Provided by publisher "A pathbreaking feminist manifesto, impossible to put down or dismiss. Gina Frangello tells the morally complex story of her adulterous relationship with a lover and her shortcomings as a mother, and in doing so, highlights the forces that shaped, silenced, and shamed her: everyday misogyny, puritanical expectations regarding female sexuality and maternal sacrifice, and male oppression." Adrienne Brodeur, author of Wild Game Gina Frangello spent her early adulthood trying to outrun a youth marked by poverty and violence. Now a long-married wife and devoted mother, the better life she carefully built is emotionally upended by the death of her closest friend. Soon, Frangello is caught up in a recklessly passionate affair, leading a double life while continuing to project the image of the perfect family. When her secrets are finally uncovered, both her home and her identity will implode, testing the limits of desire, responsibility, love, and forgiveness. Blow Your House Down is a powerful testimony about the ways our culture seeks to cage women in traditional narratives of self-sacrifice and erasure. Frangello uses her personal story to examine the place of women in contemporary society: the violence they experience, the rage they suppress, the ways their bodies often reveal what they cannot say aloud, and finally, what it means to transgress "being good" in order to save your own life. Her life turned upside down by the sudden death of her closest friend, worn down from years of caregiving both her elderly parents and three kids, Frangello began to interrogate her own mortality. Falling into a passionate affair with a writer/musician, she began living a shocking double life while continuing to outwardly project the image of having a "perfect family." Making the risky choice to leave her marriage and security in order to take a chance at finally becoming fully herself, midlife, she was only months into her separation when she was diagnosed with breast cancer, her father died, her divorce grew contentious, and her lover fell into a deep clinical depression. Her memoir explores what happens when a woman who has been very good at playing all the roles society expects of her suddenly refuses to continue being the person her family and friends think they know. -- adapted from publisher info ****A __Good Morning America__ Recommended Book • A __BuzzFeed__ Most Anticipated Book of the Year • A __Lit Hub__ Most Anticipated Book of the Year • A __Rumpus__ Most Anticipated Book of the Year **•******A __Bustle__Most Anticipated Book of the Month****** **"A pathbreaking feminist manifesto, impossible to put down or dismiss. Gina Frangello tells the morally complex story of her adulterous relationship with a lover and her shortcomings as a mother, and in doing so, highlights the forces that shaped, silenced, and shamed her: everyday misogyny, puritanical expectations regarding female sexuality and maternal sacrifice, and male oppression." —Adrienne Brodeur, author of __Wild Game__****__Blow Your House Down__