Daughter of Spies

Available from these retailers: Bookshop.org | Politics & Prose |
RJ Julia | Regal House |Amazon)

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As a child, Elizabeth Winthrop Alsop, along with her five brothers, was raised to revere the tribal legends of the Alsop and Roosevelt families. Her parents’ marriage, lived in the spotlight of 1950s Washington where the author’s father, journalist Stewart Alsop, grew increasingly famous, was not what either of her parents had imagined it would be. Her mother’s strict Catholicism and her father’s restless ambition collided to create a strangely muted and ominous world, one that mirrored the whispered conversations in the living room as the power brokers of Washington came and went through their side door. Through it all, her mother, trained to keep secrets as a decoding agent with MI5, said very little. In this brave memoir, the author explores who her mother was, why alcohol played such an important role in her mother’s life, and why her mother held herself apart from all her children, especially her only daughter. In the author’s journey to understand her parents, particularly her mother, she comes to realize that the secrets parents keep are the ones that reverberate most powerfully in the lives of their children.

Gold Medal Finalist The Wishing Shelf

2023 Finalist, Wishing Shelf Awards, UK, Adult Nonfiction.
Longlisted for the 2022 Memoir Magazine Book Awards
2022 Bronze Medal Winner, Memoir Category, Living Now Awards
2022, Runner Up, Memoir Category, New England Book Festival


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A reader favorite for 35 years, this redesigned anniversary edition includes an author’s note reflecting on the novel and its legacy. William’s story continues in The Battle for the Castle, available as a redesigned companion edition.

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