The Survivors - by Adam Frankel (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

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

Review Quotes

"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