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Magda Szubanski's childhood in a suburban migrant family was haunted by the demons of her father's life in wartime Poland. At nineteen, fighting in the Warsaw resistance, he had been recruited to a secret counter-intelligence execution squad. His mission was to assassinate Polish traitors who were betraying Jewish citizens to the Nazis. The legacy of her father's bravery left the young Magda with profound questions about her family story. As she grew up, the assassin's daughter had to navigate her own frailties and fears, including a lifelong struggle with weight gain and an increasing awareness of her own sexuality. With courage and compassion Szubanski's memoir asks the big questions about life, about the shadows we inherit and the gifts we pass on. Magda Szubanski is one of Australia's best known and most loved performers. She appeared in a number of sketch comedy shows before creating the iconic character of Sharon in ABC-TV's Kath and Kim.
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Szubanski is an unexpectedly fantastic writer and this memoir is about her whole family with herself as a product of that family. It holds its own even when you take it as a family story removed from celebrity. It particularly focuses on Szubanski's formative relationship with her father, who was an assassin in the Polish resistance during the Nazi occupation of Warsaw in WWII. Szubanski weaves the stories of both her parents together with the story of her own childhood and the development of her own psychological schemas, habits, sense of humour, queer idenitity, and public persona. I listened to the audiobook via the ABC Listen App where Australians can listen to Szubanski herself read it.