Tiger, Tiger: A Memoir [Hardcover]

Margaux Fragoso (Author)

Book Description

Release date: March 1, 2011

A Washington Post Notable Nonfiction Book for 2011

A Globe and Mail Best Books of the Year 2011 Title
Tiger, Tiger is a Publishers Weekly Best Nonfiction title for 2011

A Kirkus Reviews Best Nonfiction of 2011 title

One summer day, Margaux Fragoso meets Peter Curran at the neighborhood swimming pool, and they begin to play. She is seven; he is fifty-one. When Peter invites her and her mother to his house, the little girl finds a child’s paradise of exotic pets and an elaborate backyard garden. Her mother, beset by mental illness and overwhelmed by caring for Margaux, is grateful for the attention Peter lavishes on her, and he creates an imaginative universe for her, much as Lewis Carroll did for his real-life Alice.

In time, he insidiously takes on the role of Margaux’s playmate, father, and lover. Charming and manipulative, Peter burrows into every aspect of Margaux’s life and transforms her from a child fizzing with imagination and affection into a brainwashed young woman on the verge of suicide. But when she is twenty-two, it is Peter—ill, and wracked with guilt—who kills himself, at the age of sixty-six.

Told with lyricism, depth, and mesmerizing clarity, Tiger, Tiger vividly illustrates the healing power of memory and disclosure. This extraordinary memoir is an unprecedented glimpse into the psyche of a young girl in free fall and conveys to readers—including parents and survivors of abuse—just how completely a pedophile enchants his victim and binds her to him.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Starred Review. In this gut-wrenching memoir of sexual abuse, Fragoso, who has written short stories for various literary magazines, explores with unflinching honesty the ways in which pedophiles can manipulate their way into the lives of children. Fragoso met Peter Curran at a public pool in Union City, N.J., in 1985 when she was seven and he was 51. He seemed harmless, and invited Fragoso and her mother back to his house. This marked the beginning of Curran and Fragoso's 15-year relationship, which ended when Curran committed suicide at age 66. Fragoso's home life was strained—her mother was in and out of psychiatric wards and her father was an alcoholic—and Curran's home, with its myriad pets and lack of rules, became her refuge. The sexual abuse began slowly, progressing to oral sex in Curran's basement, an act that he requested as a "birthday present." Fragoso's sense of alienation—Curran controlled her world for more than half her life—is palpable in her telling. Using her own diaries and the myriad letters, diaries, and photographs Curran left behind, Fragoso eloquently depicts psychological and sexual abuse in disturbing detail. (Mar.)
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.

Review

Praise for Tiger, Tiger

“Tiger, Tiger will start a thousand conversations. Margaux Fragoso achieves the unthinkable with empathic clarity: she humanizes a pedophile. In doing so, she makes his crime unimaginably more frightening. Her portrayal of their relationship is shocking, revelatory, and fearless. As the story of a victim, it is gripping; as a work of literature, it’s a triumph.” —Alice Sebold, author of The Lovely Bones

“In this gut-wrenching memoir of sexual abuse, [Margaux Fragoso] explores with unflinching honesty the ways in which pedophiles can manipulate their ways into the lives of children . . . Fragoso’s sense of alienation—Curran controlled her world for more than half her life—is palpable in her telling. Using her own diaries and the myriad letters, diaries, and photographs Curran left behind, Fragoso eloquently depicts psychological and sexual abuse in disturbing detail.” —Publishers Weekly (starred review)

“Disqueting . . . Culled from the four diaries she kept during the ordeal, Fragoso writes with searing honesty about her serpentine entanglement and of Curran’s calculated, menacing exploitation of her. Intensive psychotherapy and new motherhood provide a hopeful coda to her unspeakable experience. A gripping, tragic and unforgettable chronicle of lost innocence and abuse.” —Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

“You may think you’ve already decided about a child’s ordeal with a sexual predator, but under Margaux Fragoso’s command you will consider the richest depths of experience, terrible, bright, and beautiful. Fragoso writes with unguarded grace and provides a voice—real and haunting—for those children, everywhere among us, who are deprived of theirs.” —Susanna Sonnenberg, author of Her Last Death

“Tiger, Tiger is stunning, in all the possible manifestations of that word.” —Nick Flynn, author of Another Bullshit Night in Suck City

“Once in a generation, an essential book—a necessary book—comes along and challenges our bedrock assumptions about life. Margaux Fragoso’s Tiger, Tiger is that book. Family life, the corruption of innocence, sexual abuse, pedophilia—all are unflinchingly yet exquisitely rendered as Fragoso experienced them. You will never view childhood the same way after reading Fragoso’s monumentally important book.” —Louise DeSalvo, author of Writing as a Way of Healing

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 336 pages
• Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux; First Edition edition (March 1, 2011)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0374277621
• ISBN-13: 978-0374277628
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (45 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #75,313 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #91 in Books > Parenting & Relationships > Family Relationships > Child Abuse

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

63 of 70 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars A Painful and Beautifully Wrought Memoir of Sexual Abuse March 3, 2011

By Bonnie Brody TOP 100 REVIEWERVINE™ VOICE

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase

This is one of the most visceral and heartfelt books I have ever read. It is a brave and painful book, difficult to read but beautifully wrought. From the time she was eight years old, Maugaux Fragoso was sexually abused by a man named Peter who is 51 years old when he meets her. The abuse lasts for years and years. Peter grooms Margaux, enchanting her with his home that is filled with animals like hamsters, iguanas, a dog and rabbits. He plays with her as if he was a child. He charms her, acts like a father and pretends to give her unconditional love. However, all this time he is truly a predator, attempting to begin the sexual abuse that is initiated in earnest when Margaux is eight years old.

Margaux becomes completely dependent on Peter and believes that he is the only one in the world that loves her. At times, however, she acts out in ways that indicate she has been abused but the adults in her life do not take notice. She has fugue states, terrible anger issues, spends the nights with Peter. Margaux's mother is seriously mentally ill and encourages her relationship with Peter. Her father is physically and emotionally abusive to Margaux and to her mother. Her father, at one point, suspects that Margaux is being sexually abused, but shows no empathy. In fact, if she were to admit her abuse, he'd put her on the street. When Margaux is in high school, a social worker is called in because people in the neighborhood are suspicious of Margaux's relationship with Peter but she defends him. It is not that different from Stockholm Syndrome.

As a therapist, I understand the trauma that Margaux was experiencing and her need to believe that Peter was her love. "I was Peter's religion" she says. She would put on alter-personalities to please Peter and also to believe she had some control over him. One of these personalities is a "bad girl" named Nina. Nina acts rough and tough and streetwise with a foul mouth. She punishes Peter. At times their relationship becomes physical and Peter tries to choke Margaux, gives her a black eye and punches her in the face. "I like being Nina". "It seemed as though Peter's other self Mr. Nasty was dependent on Nina and that he needed her to survive. The favors she gave him made him feel guilty and caused him to owe favors in return. This all amounted to me being in charge" Margaux needed to feel some element of control because in reality she was under Peter's control entirely.

Peter tells her that "all men like young girls whether they admit it or not. Most guys are just dishonest about it". "If you were to openly admit, yes, I find young girls attractive, you'd be burned at the stake." Peter also tries to get Margaux to believe that she is his only 'love' but she finds out that, like other pedophiles, this is not the case. There have been others, he has been in jail, and is chock-filled with secrets that gradually come out. He brainwashes her over and over again with lies and twisted love.

Margaux begins to believe that only someone like Peter - old, without teeth, perverted - could love someone like her. She is an outcast at school and doesn't know how to interact with young people her age. All of her life is spent trying to please Peter. "What did kids my own age talk about? If they'd seen me with Peter, who would I say he was? My father? He was so old he could have been my grandfather."

I encourage anyone who is in the field of trauma or sexual abuse to read this book. If you or someone you know has been sexually abused, read this book. If you want to read a beautiful memoir written by a brave and courageous woman, read this book. It is without comparison in its forthrightness, pain and hope.

14 of 15 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars In the Forests of the Night June 3, 2011

By Story Circle Book Reviews

Format:Hardcover

When Margaux Fragoso's memoir came to my attention, my first impulse was to avoid it. In these times of awful news and crass motives, I was not inclined to give further attention to the subject--pedophilia--or the possibly exploitive author and her publisher. Then I read the first dozen pages and realized Fragoso could write. I noted that her publisher was the fine Farrar, Straus and Giroux. I wondered if my reluctance was narrow, or even fearful. Eventually I knew I would disappoint myself, and possibly miss an opportunity to read a good book, if I didn't give Tiger, Tiger a try. Soon, despite some negative reviews, I was deep in the story.

With a mentally ill mother and a mean-spirited, alcoholic father, lonely seven-year-old Margaux meets fifty-one-year-old Peter at a local swimming pool. He is playing with the sons of his roommate, and they give the appearance of a happy family. Impulsively, she asks to play with them and is immediately welcomed. Soon, Peter invites Margaux and her mother over to his house, where they meet the extraordinary menagerie that he tends, including a small caiman crocodile who falls asleep as Peter rubs its belly. This animal whisperer soon has both mother and daughter charmed as well. Before long they are visiting Peter twice a week. He offers Margaux tremendous freedom at his home, and though she doesn't like what feels like pushiness in him, she revels in the liberty. When her mother complains about and makes fun of her father, Margaux joins in, Peter sympathizes, and the father is set as the outsider, excluded from their fun.

Fragoso gives us a detailed description of Curran's seductive manipulation of the entire family, as he gradually inserts himself into their lives and convinces them of his good intentions, and as they close their eyes to the result. Using guilt and bribery, elaborate fantasy play, and a child's longing for love, he makes Margaux his co-conspirator and persuades her that society's rules don't apply to them.

The strength of this book is Fragoso's ability to make that child's perspective vivid and believable. As Curran takes each uncomfortably intimate step, he finds ways to calm and entice her. Within a year he manages to make the relationship sexual, and Fragoso has begun to experience real dissociation from her own senses and emotions.

For fourteen more years, she is bound to him with complex feelings of her own power, vulnerability, distorted affection, and desire. Though some reviewers have been critical because Fragoso seems too loyal and understanding of her victimizer's troubles, it is those very feelings that are important here. The dialogue and details are doubtless more recreation than fact, yet she works through her own healing in the process of writing, and she could do no less than acknowledge the attractions that brought her to care for this broken and dangerous man.

For some victims of childhood sexual trauma, this book may be more troubling than helpful. But for those who want to understand how, if not why, such damage can be done to a child, it offers a cautionary tale worth reading. Certainly Margaux Fragoso has shown us that telling our stories can help us comprehend our own behaviors and encourage recovery. As she contemplates the Tiger in Curran, in herself, and potentially in us all, she asks with Blake: "Did he who made the Lamb make thee?"

And of course, beyond comprehension, he did. Though we may flinch, we cannot stop the Tigers or save their targets until we see them as they are. This book illuminates that forest of the night where they abide.

by Susan Schoch
for Story Circle Book Reviews
reviewing books by, for, and about women

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars painful and devastating April 13, 2011

By Paul Allaer TOP 100 REVIEWERVINE™ VOICE

Format:Hardcover

Margaux Fragoso was in an abusive relationship with a sexual predator for 15 years, from age 7 to 22, and now some 10 years later she writes her memoir about what it was like. I had read a number of great reviews about this book, and decided to pick it up recently, even though I knew the topic is painful and it would likely make for devastating reading. I was right on the latter.

In "Tiger, Tiger" (322 pages), the author retells the story of her 15 year relationship with a man called Peter, who befriended her at age 7 while she was in a dysfunctional family, and eventually corraled her into a sexual abusive relationship. You might ask why didn't she stop it as she grew older, but you need to read the author's account to truly understand. What struck me the most about reading this book is how "objective" the author brings the story. She at first seems not to blame Peter for what happened to her. But in the book's Afterword, she comes out and does point out what a sexual predator Peter in fact was, and asks for solutions: "It is true that strict enforcement of current penalties such as prison time for sex offenders is a vital part of the solution. Unfortunately, most pedophiles would be hard-pressed to find treatment options before a conviction as occurred".

It appears that the author has moved on with her life, as apparently she is now married and has a daughter. The very last lines of the book bring a ray of hope: "I make up stories for my daughter just as my father has done for me when I was her age. Some family traditions I keep; others must end with me". Wow. The author took an incredible leap of faith coming out and telling her painful story. I hope that lessons can be learned from it.