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Run Hide Repeat by Pauline Dakin book cover
2018: Pauline Dakin, Run, Hide, Repeat: A Memoir of a Fugitive Childhood

2018: Pauline Dakin, Run, Hide, Repeat: A Memoir of a Fugitive Childhood

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Description

Pauline Dakin spent her childhood on the run. Without warning, her mother twice uprooted her and her brother, moving thousands of miles away from family and friends. Disturbing events interrupt their outwardly normal life: break-ins, car thefts, even physical attacks on a family friend. Many years later, her mother finally revealed they'd been running from the Mafia and were receiving protection from a covert anti-organized crime task force.

But the truth was even more bizarre. Gradually, Dakin's fears give way to suspicion. She puts her journalistic training to work and discovers that the Mafia threat was actually an elaborate web of lies. As she revisits her past, Dakin uncovers the human capacity for betrayal and deception, and the power of love to forgive.

Judges' Comments

When Pauline Dakin was 23, her mother made a startling confession: that their family had been hiding from the Mafia since she was a child, as part of a shadowy witness protection program. In some ways, the revelation was a relief, explaining their many sudden moves and her mother’s obsession with privacy. But as it seemed to solve some mysteries, it presented another: was her mother’s incredible explanation true? In this page-turning memoir, Dakin recounts her family’s unique story, which reads like the best of spy thrillers but is, at the same time, a moving reflection on the demands and limits of our closest relationships. 

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Explore the works of our previous Edna Staebler Award for Creative Non-Fiction winners.

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