GINA FRANGELLO is the author of Every Kind of Wanting, A Life in Men, Slut Lullabies, and My Sister's Continent. Her short fiction, essays, book reviews, and journalism have been published in Ploughshares, The Boston Globe, Chicago Tribune, HuffPost, Fence, Five Chapters, Prairie Schooner, Chicago Reader, and many other publications. She lives with her family in the Chicago area.
A New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice • A Good
Morning America Recommended Book • A LitReactor Best Book of
the Year • 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
"Compelling, honest, and thought-provoking, Gina Frangello's memoir
is an inspired addition to her astounding body of work." —Charlize
Theron
"A provocative memoir." —The New York Times Book Review,
Editors' Choice
"Blow Your House Down: A Story of Family, Feminism, and
Treason . . . [is] her most lyrical, adventurous and important
work." —Meredith Maran, Los Angeles Times
"My bet for breakout of the year. The Chicagoan’s memoir takes on
gender expectations and marital affairs in such a brutal,
self-lacerating candor, you wonder who should play her in the
movie." —Christopher Borrelli, Chicago Tribune
"Candid and engrossing . . . A searing indictment of misogynistic
expectations, Blow Your House Down blasts through convention,
martyrdom and self-loathing to reach the strength, agency,
resilience and empowerment that all women deserve. This book will
inspire readers to accept themselves . . . and to live a life full
of authenticity and joy." —Ms. Magazine
"An unforgettable book." —K.W. Colyard, Bustle, a Best Book of the
Month
"Too many memoirs fall into the trap of mistaking martyrdom for
nobility, sacrifice for bravery; they float on the still-shiny
surface rather than excavating into the murk. Gina Frangello's Blow
Your House Down is not that kind of memoir. Instead, it is fierce
and violent, a rampaging storm—a breathtaking, luminous reminder of
the wreckage we are capable of making of our own lives." —Kristin
Iversen, Refinery29, One of the Best New Books of the Year
"Underlying this generous and intimate personal history is a
censure of the broad cultural suppression (and demonization) of
women's rage, passion, and autonomy; and the gleeful eagerness to
punish women who have transgressed. Frangello presents
rationalizations for her actions, but she isn't asking to be
excused: This isn't so much about seeking absolution—though she
knows she's being judged—as much as it's about reclaiming a story
that is too easily appropriated and rewritten by outsiders, often
through a lens of misogyny. It's a powerful, electric testimony."
—Arianna Rebolini, BuzzFeed
"Raw, edgy, and revealing, it is a book that dares to expose
everything, not least its author’s vulnerability." —Alta
"Gina Frangello’s new memoir Blow Your House Down: A Story of
Family, Feminism, and Treason explodes the good girl trope with a
vengeance . . . Reading Frangello’s confessional account of her
years-long affair with a longtime friend turned lover—and the
secrecy, pleasure, betrayal, and upheaval surrounding it—I was
reminded of both The Scarlet Letter and Lolita, with a little
Ferrante thrown in." —Kelly Thompson, Guernica
"Indeed, the attention and nuance which Frangello gives to her life
story and the gendered issues of care and livelihood generate
multiple readings that dismantle, strip, and rebuild readers’
understanding of the present. In the end, Frangello is not simply
asking us to blow our own houses down but instead to consider how
they are built and what they encompass, while also imagining a new
edifice from which to move forward. " —Clancey D'Isa, Chicago
Review of Books
"All of me loved Gina Frangello for writing this book. With her
unapologetic, hold-nothing-back confessional style, she draws us in
as she interweaves the messy milestones of her life with feminist
ideology." —Megan Vered, The Los Angeles Review of Books
"I’m a sucker for the sort of story arc in Blow Your House Down:
Woman follows the rules. Woman becomes wife, mother. Woman is
'good' in all things. One day, following crisis or unrelenting
ennui, woman realizes that her life feels hollow or binding, so she
sets about changing said life (sometimes in explosive fashion). I
love this story enough in novel form, but better yet, Gina
Frangello unravels it in all its reckless, transgressive, messy
glory in this memoir about womanhood and misogyny, sex and joy."
—Literary Hub, One of the Most Anticipated Books of the Year
"In this searing memoir, novelist Frangello charts the spectacular
highs and devastating lows of her midlife with extraordinary candor
. . . Frangello describes this bold and tumultuous period of her
life in intimate and remarkable detail, and despite the tumult
celebrates her own resilience. This unapologetic account both moves
and fascinates." —Publishers Weekly (starred review)
"Searingly honest and compulsively readable, this
memoir serves as a post–#MeToo feminist dictum about the
deeply complex and multilayered emotional and sexual lives of
women. With humor and a no-holds-barred self-inspection, the author
illuminates these layers and reminds us that 'the clean reduction
of a woman to any prime number is always a
lie.' Uncompromisingly fearless in its candor, this
memoir/feminist manifesto is a powerful account of a woman’s
self-acceptance that deserves a place among the best literary
memoirs of the last decade. Frangello’s groundbreaking testimony
sets itself apart." —Library Journal (starred review)
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