
You Won't Get Free of It
Stories of Mothers and Daughters
Rachel Aviv(Author)
Fern Press
Will be published approx. on 9. July 2026
Book
Hardback
240 pages
978-1-911717-64-5 (ISBN)
Description
Real-life stories of mothers and daughters - of what we inherit, what we bury and what we, finally, find the courage to say - by the award-winning New Yorker staff writer.
'Beautiful, thoughtful and probing writer' Daisy Johnson
You Won't Get Free of It tells the stories of mothers and daughters searching for each other and for themselves. Aviv explores the complexity of this relationship in seven essays, six originally published in the New Yorker and reconceived for this intimate, revelatory book.
Aviv writes about one mother searching for her vanished daughter; another who sacrifices herself for her daughters by working as a nanny for other people's children. In the final story, a daughter's traumatic experience is erased by her family, only to be recast by her mother, the writer Alice Munro, in stories celebrated around the world.
You Won't Get Free of It is an astonishing exploration of the competing dynamics of knowing and unknowing, recognition and refusal, that shape our most foundational relationship.
PRAISE FOR STRANGERS TO OURSELVES
'An arresting work of profound empathy and insight' Patrick Radden Keefe
'Combines the poise of Janet Malcolm and the confessional bravery of Joan Didion' Vogue
'Profoundly intelligent' Guardian
'Beautiful, thoughtful and probing writer' Daisy Johnson
You Won't Get Free of It tells the stories of mothers and daughters searching for each other and for themselves. Aviv explores the complexity of this relationship in seven essays, six originally published in the New Yorker and reconceived for this intimate, revelatory book.
Aviv writes about one mother searching for her vanished daughter; another who sacrifices herself for her daughters by working as a nanny for other people's children. In the final story, a daughter's traumatic experience is erased by her family, only to be recast by her mother, the writer Alice Munro, in stories celebrated around the world.
You Won't Get Free of It is an astonishing exploration of the competing dynamics of knowing and unknowing, recognition and refusal, that shape our most foundational relationship.
PRAISE FOR STRANGERS TO OURSELVES
'An arresting work of profound empathy and insight' Patrick Radden Keefe
'Combines the poise of Janet Malcolm and the confessional bravery of Joan Didion' Vogue
'Profoundly intelligent' Guardian
Reviews / Votes
Aviv is an instinctive storyteller * Observer * I admire her rigor and eloquence but also her restraint - she makes vivid experiences we can't explain -- Ben Lerner Janet Malcolm's successor at the New Yorker * Tablet *More details
Language
English
Place of publication
United Kingdom
Publishing group
Vintage Publishing
Dimensions
Height: 222 mm
Width: 138 mm
Thickness: 40 mm
Weight
750 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-911717-64-5 (9781911717645)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions

E-Book
approx. 07/2026
Vintage Digital
€14.99
Not yet available
Person
RACHEL AVIV is a staff writer at the New Yorker, where she writes about psychology, medical ethics and criminal justice, among other subjects. She is a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for Feature Writing and the winner of a George Polk Award and a National Magazine Award. Her 2022 book, Strangers to Ourselves, a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award, was a New York Times bestseller. She lives in Brooklyn, New
York.
York.