Elizabeth Winthrop Alsop | Daughter of Spies: Wartime Secrets, Family Lies

Read Between the Lines

Molly talks with author Elizabeth Winthrop Alsop about her book "Daughter of Spies: Wartime Secrets, Family Lies".

About Daughter of Spies: Wartime Secrets, Family Lies

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.

About the author

Elizabeth Winthrop Alsop is the author of more than 60 works of fiction for all ages. She is the winner of the Dorothy Canfield Fisher Award, the Pen Syndicated Fiction Award. Elizabeth has written books for children of all ages (The Castle In The Attic, Counting on Grace, Dumpy La Rue), novels for adults (In My Mother’s House and Island Justice), short stories (Bad News and The Golden Darters anthologized in Best American Short Stories), and poetry (published in anthologies and literary reviews).You can get in touch with Elizabeth Winthrop by clicking here. Click here for a great interview with Elizabeth about all facets of her writing career. In the fall of 2022, Regal House published Winthrop’s memoir, Daughter of Spies: Wartime Secrets, Family Lies about her parents’ love affair in England during the war and the complications of their marriage in the politically charged atmosphere of 1950s Washington.

One easy way to support this show is to rate and review Read Between the Lines wherever you listen to our podcast. Those ratings really help us and help others find our show.

Read Between the Lines is hosted by Molly Southgate and is produced/edited by Rob Southgate for Southgate Media Group.

Follow this show on Facebook @ReadBetweentheLinesPod

Follow our parent network on Twitter at @SMGPods

Make sure to follow SMG on Facebook too at @SouthgateMediaGroup

Learn more, subscribe, or contact Southgate Media Group at www.southgatemediagroup.com.

Check out our webpage at southgatemediagroup.com