Living in the Shadow of the Freud Family

Subjects:

• Psychology » Psychology (General)
• Psychology » Social Psychology

Related Web Pages:

• Sophie Freud interviewed on wbur.org, Boston's NPR News Source
• Sophie Freud interviewed on Valley Free radio's show Writers Voice

Reviews:

• From Paris, to Nice, to a refugee camp in Morocco, and then to New York, what this book makes clear is that it is impossible to leave all one's baggage behind....This collection of recollections and contemporary voices is an intriguing insight into the complexities of the family, all the more so because Sigmund Freud himself appears in a sort of cameo role, an incidental but influential presence. It is a fascinating read for scholars of Freud and family relationships alike, although for the interested layman it can be read purely for the soap-opera enjoyment of this complex family.
  —Metapsychology Online Reviews June 17, 2008
• Drawing on her late mother's memoirs, other family writings, and her own diary, Sophie Freud, the granddaughter of Sigmund Freud, chronicles the family's neurotic relationships over the course of the 20th century in Europe and the U.S. For example she reveals that her father was not considered suitable to marry her mother, because the famous psychoanalyst was "just another psychiatrist and one who writes pornography at that," and that Dr. Freud was later asked to be her parents' marriage counselor. The book includes a Drucker-Freud family tree, photos, and portraits.
  —Reference & Research Book News August 2007
• Merging memory and love, Sophie Freud has chronicled the struggles of her famous family and its stern patriarch in an affecting memoir of searing power and poignancy....[a] domestic saga that is a valuable document of our times....As if weaving a tapestry, she examines the Freud family legacy by stitching together memories of others, their letters, diaries and even obituaries....The effect is mesmerizing, even Proustian. Instead of writing a memoir that observes history from a single fixed perspective, Freud pulls her readers into her extended family's kaleidoscope lives over decades of personal drama and international conflict.
  —The Daily News August 19, 2007
• Imagine growing up in a home that fully embraced the Oedipus complex? Yeah, not so fun. Enter Sophie Freud, the grand-daughter of the granddaddy of psychoanalytic thought. Freud offers the repressed masses an inside glimpse into such a childhood....Her memoir chronicles the extended family through letters, diaries and recaps of personal experiences, exploring the triumphs and hardships of carrying the famous name.
  —The Improper Bostonian August 15-28, 2007

• Endorsement From Charles B. Strozier,
  Professor of History, John Jay College and the Graduate Center, CUNY: What is in fact most compelling about this book is the sublime honesty of Sophie Freud herself. One feels her pride and her suffering as a scion of psychoanalytic aristocracy.
• Endorsement From Louis Breger, Ph.D.
  Author of the acclaimed biography Freud: Darkness in the Midst of Vision: I found myself completely taken over, pulled into the story and unable to put the book down...so compelling is the combination of historical events with intriguing personal/family stories.... This saga, fascinating in its own right, and sheds reflected light on the famous Freud family. Autobiography, diaries and letters give multiple views of these events, held together by Sophie Freud's own fiercely honest narration. I know of nothing like it and strongly recommend it as a beautifully crafted work that will appeal to the widest group of readers.
• Endorsement From Dorit B. Whiteman, Ph.D.
  President, Nassau County Psychological Association author of The Uprooted: A Hitler Legacy and Escape via Siberia: A Jewish Child's Odyssey of Survival: This riveting, insightful book illuminates the personal lives of Freud's extended family through letters, diaries and personal observations. No melodrama can match the loves, hates, betrayals and deceptions that rend the members apart. Yet there are displays of extraordinary courage, outstanding achievements, intense cultural pursuits and deep dedication. For instance, amazing courage is displayed by Freud's daughter-in-law and granddaughter as they escape the advancing Germans by bicycling across France. Benignly but distantly, Sigmund floats above the turmoil. For the Freud scholar this is a must-read, for the layman it is as juicy as a gossip column.
• Endorsement From Frank J. Sulloway,
  Author of Freud, Biologist of the Mind: Beyond the Psychoanalytic Legend and Born to Rebel: Birth Order, Family Dynamics, and Creative Lives.: Spanning more than a century of family history, Sophie Freud's captivating memoir presents a penetrating and brutally honest glimpse into the conflicted lives, unfulfilled dreams, and cruel setbacks experienced by this extended branch of the Freud family. Readers will be fascinated by the sometimes harrowing details of how this famous family--buffeted by the tragedy of two world wars and the horrors of the Holocaust--survived the arduous path from Vienna to a new life in America.
• Endorsement From Morris N. Eagle, Ph. D.
  Professor Emeritus, Derner Institute of Advanced Psychological Studies Adelphi University.: This is a fascinating and unusual book, one that can be read at many different levels. It is a moving document--an act of love--of a daughter who, in her own later years, re-discovers her mother through her mother's autobiography. This is altogether and extraordinary, even epic, account of mainly the lives of mother and daughter, but also of an entire family. I was very moved by its depth, sadness, courage, and honesty.