Overview

"Failure to Appear: Resistance, Identity and Loss is a memoir about a gay woman of conscience who became a fugitive, on the run for over nineteen years using several fake names. This book is a gripping story about finding your real self and your sexual truth. It delves into family rejection for being a lesbian, the price of ideals, lost love, the agony of an underground existence, and personal renewal. The final, suspenseful chapters describe the author's voluntary surrender and re-sentencing. It takes place in the turbulent late sixties through the late eighties, against the backdrop of the Vietnam War, the Nixon and Reagan years, the women's and gay liberation movements, and the AIDS crisis. This story is very relevant to our time, as injustice and bigotry remain fundamental societal ills. As one reader described it, ""I couldn't put it down. It has it all: coming of age, coming out, sex scenes, close calls, and gripping life choices. I sunk deeper under my comforter and deeper into an amazing true story."""

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9781619294264

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Reviews

"FAILURE TO APPEAR is a fierce coming of age story of a political activist, a young woman and of a generation. When it becomes as clear to the reader as it does to Emily Freeman that ""In a mad country, it's sane to be insane"" the urgency of being a part of progressive change is a body slam that takes your breath away. That visceral response is even stronger when we understand that this truth is as crucial today as it was in our country's past. This book takes its place alongside the searing and sensitive memoirs of other moral dissenters who've helped change the course our history. Jewelle Gomez, author, poet, critic and playwright. Her numerous works include The Gilda Stories. Winner of two Lambda Literary Awards; founding member of GLAAD; and a National Endowment for the Arts Fellow. Failure to Appear is a page-turner, a powerful and courageous story of a woman risking everything to stand up for what is right and for her own truth. Her details are stunning, humorous and sensuous as she lives life underground, cut off from family and friends. Ultimately, the book inspires all of us to fight for what is right and to be our true selves. Louise Nayer, is the author of five books, including an O, the Oprah Magazine Great Read, Burned: A Memoir."

FAILURE TO APPEAR is a fierce coming of age story of a political activist, a young woman and of a generation. When it becomes as clear to the reader as it does to Emily Freeman that In a mad country, it's sane to be insane the urgency of being a part of progressive change is a body slam that takes your breath away. That visceral response is even stronger when we understand that this truth is as crucial today as it was in our country's past. This book takes its place alongside the searing and sensitive memoirs of other moral dissenters who've helped change the course our history. Jewelle Gomez, author, poet, critic and playwright. Her numerous works include The Gilda Stories. Winner of two Lambda Literary Awards; founding member of GLAAD; and a National Endowment for the Arts Fellow. Failure to Appear is a page-turner, a powerful and courageous story of a woman risking everything to stand up for what is right and for her own truth. Her details are stunning, humorous and sensuous as she lives life underground, cut off from family and friends. Ultimately, the book inspires all of us to fight for what is right and to be our true selves. Louise Nayer, is the author of five books, including an O, the Oprah Magazine Great Read, Burned: A Memoir.

Author Information

"Emily graduated UC Berkeley in 1967 with a degree in Anthropology. As a university student, she became an activist for peace and social justice. Her family disowned her because she declared herself to be a lesbian troublemaker. During the summer of 1967, she moved to Chicago and joined a group of Movement activists organizing against the Vietnam War. In 1968, she became a draft counselor with the American Friends Service Committee, a Quaker social-action organization. One May night in 1969, Emily and seventeen others hauled somewhere around 40,000 records of draft-eligible men from the draft board office on the South Side of Chicago and burned them, as an act of non-violent civil disobedience against the Vietnam War and racism. The group waited at the scene, singing ""We Shall Overcome"", and were arrested. Towards the end of her federal trial in 1970, she went underground for nineteen years, which ended with her voluntary surrender in 1989. As surreal as it seems during her fugitive years and later in her career, she became a noted insurance and risk management specialist for professional liability, computer security and privacy risks. She held jobs as an underwriting manager and as a practice leader for two international brokers in the US and London. She has been interviewed on CNN Evening News and NPR, as well as quoted and published in numerous trade magazines. She still maintains her spirit of resistance post-retirement: writing, growing organic vegetables, playing classical piano, and admiring the beauty of the natural world."

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