Description
About the Author
Judy Bolton-Fasman is an award-winning writer on culture―literary, visual and film―for Jewish Boston.com and whose column on parenting and family life appears regularly in the Jewish Advocate. She frequently contributes to The New York Times “Motherlode blog”: and the Boston Globe. Her work has also appeared in Lilith Magazine, O Magazine. McSweeney’s. The Rumpus, Cognoscenti, Brevity and Catapult. She recently received a Pushcart Prize nomination and is a four-time recipient of the Simon Rockower Award for Essay from the American Jewish Press Association. Judy has received fellowships from the Virginia Center for Creative Arts, The Mineral School in Mineral, Washington, and the Vermont Studio Center. She is most recently the recipient of the Alonzo G. Davis Fellowship awarded to a Latinx writer from the Virginia Center for Creative Arts and was the Erin Donovan Fellow in Non-Fiction at the Mineral School in 2018. Judy grew up on Asylum Avenue near Hartford, CT and now lives with her husband, daughter and son just outside of Boston.
Reviews
Asylum, Judy Bolton-Fasman’s fascinating memoir, is populated by vivid, complex, and original characters, from whom the writer inherited two languages and several mysteries to unravel and contradictory stories to set straight…. Asylum addresses the untold story of Jewish immigration from Cuba, 20th century American history, and family conflict, but as a kind of detective story begun by Bolton-Fasman as a little girl and completed after years of research and reflection. It’s delightful page-turner. –Anita Diamant author of The Red Tent and Boston Girl
Asylum has enough passion, family secrets, and political intrigue to keep even the most jaded memoir reader on the edge of his seat. But what carried me along was the warmth, precision, and gentle humor of Judy Bolton’s writing. Hers is a voice that charms and captures you from the opening paragraphs. –Stephen McCauley author of The Object of My Affection and the upcoming My Ex-Life
True to her name, Judy Bolton-Fasman is a brilliant detective, searching for answers about her father both the world and in her own heart. This book is true to its name, as well, ultimately offering the solace the word “Asylum” suggests. A stunning meditation on grief and secrets–finely observed, beautifully written. –Gayle Brandeis author of The Art of Misdiagnosis: Surviving My Mother’s Suicide
Most children are spies, trying to uncover and decipher clues as to who their parents really are. But very few children discover their parents are spies. Real spies. In Asylum, Judy Bolton-Fasman proves herself to be the cleverest, most perceptive, and most compassionate of detectives, solving the mystery of her father’s secret life in South America and her parents’ troubled marriage. A deeply moving, beautifully written, original story of family and faith, passion and mourning, betrayal, and love. –Eileen Pollack author of A Perfect Life and The Only Woman in the Room: Why Science is Still a Boy’s Club
A common optical illusion of childhood is that your parents are exactly who you assume them to be. But even as a young girl, Judy Bolton sensed that her father had a hidden life. A tender investigation into her own detective work as a girl builds into a profound investigation of family secrets, memory, and the legacy of being the daughter of a spy. –Howard Axelrod author of The Point of Vanishing: A Memoir of Two Years of Solitude
Asylum is a deeply moving memoir that investigates the ever-complicated knot of familial love, loss and longing. Judy Bolton-Fasman beautifully captures that urge so many of us have to better understand those loved ones who were close to us yet nonetheless eluded our grasp. –Tova Mirvis author of Visible City and The Book of Separation: A Memoir
“Judy Bolton-Fasman’s profound quest to understand the mystery surrounding her Sephardic Cuban mother and her Ashkenazi American father is immensely moving, showing how unmasking hurt can lead to healing and finding the asylum of a wide-open heart. An unforgettable, deeply spiritual, culturally rich memoir!”–Ruth Behar, author of Lucky Broken Girl and Letters from Cuba
Paper With Flaps, 240 pp
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