The Shmutz: CBE Writers Get Real
Donna Freed on Duplicity: My Mothers' Secrets in conversation with Margot Lurie
Wednesday, November 8 at 7:00 PM
CBE Chapel, 274 Garfield Place
At CBE, we count many acclaimed authors, journalists, and screenwriters among our membership. We hope you will join us for our quarterly series, where the writers in our midst will introduce us to the books, ideas, and authors they can’t stop thinking about.
This November, CBE member author Margot Lurie will be in conversation with Donna Freed, discussing her gripping memoir about her search, Duplicity: My Mothers’ Secrets—called “the most amazing and remarkable story” by the Today Show, and “a family scandal straight out of a Hollywood film noir” by The Spectator.
Signed books will be available for purchase following the event.
The event is free and open to the public. A wine and cheese reception will follow the event. Please register in advance.
About Duplicity: My Mothers' Secrets
Donna was six years old when her sister casually told her that she and her siblings were all adopted. It was a revelation that fractured her sense of identity but remained one of those things left unsaid within the family. Later, when her complicated and unconventional adoptive mother died, Donna was left feeling exposed, her life un-witnessed without a mother to look over her.
So, she decided to investigate her origins and began the search for her birth mother. Trawling through records she discovered that she had been adopted through the notorious Louise Wise Adoption Service based in Manhattan and since exposed as corrupt and unethical, but that was just the beginning. As she dug deeper she discovered that her birth parents had been involved in an explosive and salacious story, one of the biggest true crime stories to grip the USA in the late 1960s.
Previously redacted records from the infamous adoption agency revealed that Donna's mother (27, Jewish and single), her father (40, Catholic, married with 4 children), had hatched a plan to defraud an insurance company and run off to Spain to raise Donna. Further investigation revealed that in 1967, Donna's mother, Mira Lindenmaier, faked her own death in a drowning accident off City Island in the Bronx for the double indemnity insurance money.
Donna Freed grew up in White Plains, NY and is a graduate of Vassar College. She has worked in advertising, interior design and television production for Good Morning America. She is a translator (The Metamorphosis and Other Stories by Franz Kafka, Barnes & Noble) and writer. Since moving to London in 2005 she has written for The Oldie magazine and the BBC and co-presented Radio Gorgeous, the UK's longest running all-female podcast. She has also co-founded the UK's first cookbook festival and London's only specialist cheese market. She lives in London and Corfu with her family.
Margot Lurie is a writer and presenter whose work has appeared on BBC 5, Iowa Public Radio, and elsewhere. She was head of public programming at the Museum of Jewish Heritage, and co-curated the retrospective exhibition Ordinary Treasures: Highlights from the Museum of Jewish Heritage. margotlurie.com