Gina Frangello

A new edition of Frangello’s explosive retelling of Freud’s infamous “Dora” case study Kirby is a young woman attempting to come to terms with a failed bout of therapy and the truth about her identical twin, Kendra. Since girlhood, Kirby both idolized and envied Kendra, a fearless and charismatic ballet dancer who commanded the attention of everyone in their orbit. In the aftermath of tragedy, Kirby is sent a case study by a former psychiatrist intent on publishing a distorted version of her family’s secrets. She responds by using Kendra’s private and revealing journals to reconstruct their final months together, as well as her own “disastrous” time in therapy, to voice her own truth. Freud’s “Dora,” a young woman whose mysterious symptoms he contentiously chalked up to “hysteria,” appears at turns in the faces of each twin as they navigate a world of sexuality, familial dysfunction, and possibly-psychosomatic ailments. Reissued with a new foreword by Lidia Yuknavitch, Frangello’s groundbreaking early novel brings “Dora” into a new era.

The collection that cemented Frangello’s reputation as a writer on the power dynamics of sexuality, gender, and the body Through beauty, horror, humor, and chaos, Gina Frangello’s electric stories mine the human experience. A gay Latino man whose pious relatives are boycotting his commitment ceremony becomes caught up in hypocrisy and splendor when his lover’s Waspy mother hires a glitzy wedding coordinator. A desperate teen “seduces” her teacher in order to blackmail him into funding her young stepmother’s escape from their violent home. A wife turns to infidelity and drugs to distract her from chronic pain following an accident. A teenage boy attempts atonement in Amsterdam after having exploited and betrayed his naive girlfriend at home. A socialite must confront her dark past as her husband’s deteriorating illness erodes both her bank account and social standing. Intimate and raw, this new edition of Frangello’s short fiction includes two previously unpublished stories. A foreword by Rebecca Makkai explains how Frangello’s incendiary work has opened the door for writing about deeply flawed and fascinating women.

What is it about Elena Ferrante's writing, especially her masterwork Neapolitan Novels, that resonates so deeply with millions of readers, making this Italian author who writes under a pseudonym with absolutely no "platform," an international sensation? Brilliantly addressing issues such as class struggle, female friendship, women's autonomy, and literary creation itself, Ferrante's hyperrealist, intense storytelling is a saga of a highly specific place and history, yet somehow also transcends them, resonating on profoundly personal levels with readers of every background. Gina Frangello grew up in poverty in inner-city Chicago two decades after Ferrante's most famous characters, Lenu and Lila grew up in Naples. Despite these seemingly insurmountable difference, Frangello felt that Ferrante was "writing about my youth, my life, my relationships, my struggles." In the latest volume in the Bookmarked series, Gina Frangello contemplates Ferrante's Neapolitan novels through the lens of memoir, literary criticism, and issues of authorial identity and gender. Should who Ferrante "is" matter? And more importantly, what is it about Lenu and Lila's story that taps into such universal truths that makes readers feel that Ferrante is writing specifically to them?

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.

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 "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.