On the inheriting podcast, one event can change a family for generations.
Green Americans, we call it sa I gu.
Did you ever realize when you were a child that you became an orphan?
Camp was such a hard time?
How do you think you got through it?
Listen to inheriting, our new podcast about asian american and Pacific Islander families from Las studios and the NPR network.
Wherever you get your podcasts, this is fresh air.
I'm Tanya Moseley.
Today my guest is writer Shalom Auslander.
For decades, he's written with humor about what it was like to grow up in a dysfunctional household within an ultra orthodox jewish community near the catskills in the town of Muncie, New York.
He describes how it was drilled into him from a very young age that he was born into sin, which meant he was broken, shameful, and in constant need of redemption.
Now in his middle age, Shalom Ostlander explores the weight of trying to shed those feelings in a new memoir titled Fe is the yiddish word for yuck.
A pervasive feeling of self contempt, Shalom has battled with his entire life in his attempt to rewrite his story.
He faces some of the darkest parts of himself, which include addiction, thoughts of harm, and contending with the loss of his good friend, actor Philip Seymour Hoffman, whom Shalon says also battled with feelings of shame.
His first memoir, Foreskin's Lament, was about his childhood years and his estrangement from his religious community and its traditions.
His work has been featured on this american life and in several publications, including the New Yorker, Esquire magazine, and the New York Times.
And Shalom Ostlander.
Welcome back to Fresh air.
Thank you.
Glad to be here.