Judy Bolton-Fasman - Asylum, a Memoir of Family Secrets

Judy Bolton-Fasmans Asylum is a masterfully written and compelling memoir, sparkling with love, mystery, humor, and wonder. Delving into family secrets, Bolton-Fasman illuminates a critical period in American Cold War history. Seldom have I felt so moved by the complexities of a family story told with such intelligence and warmth.

Helen Fremont, author of The Escape Artist and After Long Silence: A Memoir

Asylum, Judy Bolton-Fasmans 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, twentieth-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. Its a 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-Fasmans 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 in 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 secretsfinely observed, beautifully written.

Gayle Brandeis, author of The Art of Misdiagnosis: Surviving My Mothers 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 fathers 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 Boys 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-Fasman 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-Fasmans 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

A MEMOIR OF FAMILY SECRETS

JUDY BOLTON-FASMAN

MANDEL VILAR PRESS

Copyright 2021 by Judy Bolton-Fasman

All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means, including electronic storage and retrieval systems, except by explicit prior written permission of the publisher. Brief passages may be excerpted for review and critical purposes.

This book is typeset in Kepler Std 11/15. The paper used in this book meets the minimum requirements of ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992 (R1997).

Designed by Sophie Appel

All images in this book are courtesy of the author.

Authors note: Asylum recounts my story as I remember it. As I strive to retrieve my memories to represent my truth, the timeline remains deliberately nonlinear. I have blurred some places and changed some names to shield the identities of those whose privacy merits protection.

Parts of this book appeared previously in the following publications: Letter of Last Resort in Modern Loss; Trastienda in Off Assignment; Not Even a Glass of Water in Cleaver Magazine; Judy Bolton, Girl Detective, Girl Thief in Lunch Ticket; Heathen, Slave, Woman in Brevity Magazine; Reciting Kaddish as a Daughter in The Forward; The Ninety Day Wonder in Rappahannock Review; With Love From Harold: A Fathers War Story Offers Hope in an Uncertain Time in Cognoscenti; The Spy Who Loved Me in Cognoscenti; The Somnambulist in Thimble Literary Magazine; The First Anniversary of the Pandemic in Exquisite Pandemic. The author holds the copyright to these articles.

Publishers Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Name: Bolton-Fasman, Judy, Author

Title: Asylum: A Memoir of Family Secrets

Description: Simsbury, Connecticut, Mandel Vilar Press [2021]

Identifiers: ISBN 978-1942134-770 (pbk.)

E-ISBN: 978-1942134-787 (ebook)

Subjects: LCSHL Bolton-Fasman, Judy Memoir / Jewish Sephardic and Ashkenazi/ United States and Cuba / Latinx / Detective Story of Family Secrets and Mysteries/ American Cold War History

Classification LCC PS 3569 B3387 Z46 2021

Printed in the United States of America

21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 / 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Mandel Vilar Press

19 Oxford Court, Simsbury, Connecticut 06070

www.americasforconservation.org | www.mvpublishers.org

To My PastK. Harold Bolton zl and Matilde A. Bolton

To My PresentKen Fasman

To My FutureAnna Fasman and Adam Fasman

There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside of you.

Maya Angelou

Turn it and turn it again, for everything is in it.

Ethics of Our Fathers

Each of us has a name, given to us by God, and given to us by our father and mother.

Zelda (Israeli poet)

Burn This

T here is a Jewish saying that an uninterpreted dream is like an unopened letter from Goda letter that surely must contain secrets of the universe.

The only letters I received that muggy summer when I stayed on the non-air-conditioned side of the 92nd Street Y were from my father, usually cheery cards (Well, hello over there!), or thin sheets of yellow legal-pad paper with bits of curmudgeonly wisdom designed to steer my focus away from my recent heartbreak: Youre a smart kidyou can do this! You can finish that darn thesis! Dont let all that time and money be for naught!

This time was different. In my mail was an unusually thick envelope that bore the return address of my fathers Hartford office. I knew he had more on his mind than usual that summer, and the heavily taped envelope with too much postage signaled as much. It came on the heels of another letter he had sent, his more typical one-page kind, telling me, I shall no longer pay the reservation fee at your school.