Speakers: Hadley Freeman, Lisa Appignanesi

In this online event in conversation with Lisa Appignanesi, Hadley Freeman talks about her exquisite and moving memoir, House of Glass, an exploration of assimilation, identity and home. After her grandmother died, Hadley travelled to her apartment to try and make sense of a woman she’d never really known. Sala Glass was a European expat in America – defiantly clinging to her French influences, famously reserved, fashionable to the end – yet to Hadley much of her life remained a mystery. By piecing together letters, photos and an unpublished memoir, Hadley brings to life the full story of the Glass siblings for the first time: Alex’s past as a fashion couturier and friend of Dior and Chagall; trusting and brave Jacques, a fierce patriot for his adopted country; and the brilliant Henri who hid in occupied France – each of them made extraordinary bids for survival during WWII. And alongside her great-uncles’ extraordinary acts of courage in Vichy France, Hadley discovers her grandmother’s equally heroic but more private form of female self-sacrifice.