
The Family Outing
A Memoir
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Narrated by:
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Jessi Hempel
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By:
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Jessi Hempel
About this listen
“Fascinating, funny, and wise, The Family Outing is an affirmation to all of us who know the pain and shame of hiding our truest self, and a stirring invitation into the courage, freedom, and joy of living our whole truth.”—Glennon Doyle, author of #1 New York Times bestseller Untamed, founder of Together Rising
A striking and remarkable literary memoir about one family’s transformation, with almost all of them embracing their queer identities.
Jessi Hempel was raised in a seemingly picture-perfect, middle-class American family. But the truth was far from perfect. Her father was constantly away from home, traveling for work, while her stay-at-home mother became increasingly lonely and erratic. Growing up, Jessi and her two siblings struggled to make sense of their family, their world, their changing bodies, and the emotional turmoil each was experiencing. And each, in their own way, was hiding their true self from the world.
By the time Jessi reached adulthood, everyone in her family had come out: Jessi as gay, her sister as bisexual, her father as gay, her brother as transgender, and her mother as a survivor of a traumatic experience with an alleged serial killer. Yet coming out was just the beginning, starting a chain reaction of other personal revelations and reckonings that caused each of them to question their place in the world in new and ultimately liberating ways.
©2022 Jessi Hempel (P)2022 HarperCollins PublishersListeners also enjoyed...
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Craigslist Confessional
- A Collection of Secrets from Anonymous Strangers
- By: Helena Dea Bala
- Narrated by: Full Cast
- Length: 8 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
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Helena Dea Bala was an exhausted and isolated DC lobbyist, suffocating under the weight of her student loan debt, when she decided to split her lunch with a man who often panhandled near her office. They chatted effortlessly as they ate; there were no half-truths, no fear of judgment. Helena felt connected and unburdened in a way she hadn’t in years. Inspired, she posted an ad on Craigslist promising to listen, anonymously and for free, to whatever the speaker felt he or she couldn’t tell anyone else. Emails from people desperate to connect flooded her inbox, and she listened.
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Depressing
- By Brett W. on 03-01-21
By: Helena Dea Bala
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The Boy Who Reached for the Stars
- A Memoir
- By: Elio Morillo
- Narrated by: Timothy Andrés Pabon
- Length: 6 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
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Elio Morillo’s life is abruptly spun out of orbit when economic collapse and personal circumstances compel his mother to flee Ecuador for the United States in search of a better future for her son. His itinerant childhood sets into motion a migration that will ultimately carry Elio to the farthest expanse of human endeavor: space.
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Such an inspiring story.
- By Anonymous User on 11-01-23
By: Elio Morillo
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The Forbidden Daughter
- The True Story of a Holocaust Survivor
- By: Zipora Klein Jakob
- Narrated by: Robin Siegerman
- Length: 6 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
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Elida Friedman was not supposed to have been born. In the Kovno Ghetto in Lithuania, Nazi law forbade Jewish women from giving birth. Yet, despite the fear of death, Dr. Jonah Friedman and his wife Tzila choose to bring a daughter into the world, a little girl they name Elida—meaning non-birth in Hebrew.
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Born in Fire, Died in Fire, Elida✡️ 💙🇮🇱🇺🇸💙✡️
- By michael petro on 11-10-24
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You Will Get Through This Night
- By: Daniel Howell
- Narrated by: Daniel Howell
- Length: 6 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
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A practical guide to taking control of your mental health for today, tomorrow, and the days after, from the number one New York Times best-selling author and beloved entertainer.
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Changed my life
- By RCubed on 05-20-21
By: Daniel Howell
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The Kitchen Whisperers
- Cooking with the Wisdom of Our Friends
- By: Dorothy Kalins
- Narrated by: Abby Craden
- Length: 8 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
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The cooking lessons that stick with us are rarely the ones we read in books or learn through blog posts or YouTube videos (depending on your generation); they're the ones we pick up as we spend time with good cooks in the kitchen. Dorothy Kalins, founding editor of Saveur magazine, calls the people who pass on their cooking wisdom her Kitchen Whisperers. Consciously or not, they help make us the cooks we are—and help show the way to the kind of cooks we have the potential to become.
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needs an accompanying PDF of recipes
- By Linda on 10-29-21
By: Dorothy Kalins
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Passionate Mothers, Powerful Sons
- The Lives of Jennie Jerome Churchill and Sara Delano Roosevelt
- By: Charlotte Gray
- Narrated by: Allyson Ryan
- Length: 13 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
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Born into upper-class America in the same year, 1854, Sara Delano (later to become the mother of Franklin Delano Roosevelt) and Jennie Jerome (later to become the mother of Winston Churchill) refused to settle into predictable, sheltered lives as little-known wives to prominent men. Instead, both women concentrated much of their energies on enabling their sons to reach the epicenter of political power on two continents.
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Dreadful reader
- By M.Beiny H. on 10-08-24
By: Charlotte Gray
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The Spark Factor
- The Secret to Supercharging Energy, Becoming Resilient, and Feeling Better Than Ever
- By: Molly Maloof
- Narrated by: Molly Maloof, Mark Jacobson
- Length: 7 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
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In The Spark Factor, Dr. Molly Maloof shares a program uniquely tailored to the biology of women—a plan that targets the mitochondria, the power source of the cells. As Dr. Maloof shows, the intense, all-or-nothing approaches commonly used by biohackers to optimize health—including sustained fasting, ultra-low-carb diets, and intense training—can be harmful, especially for women, because they create excessive stress in an already-stressed body, which can make us tired, weak, and prone to illness.
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This is like reading 20 other great books
- By Jeff on 02-12-23
By: Molly Maloof
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One Beautiful Dream
- By: Jennifer Fulwiler
- Narrated by: Jennifer Fulwiler
- Length: 7 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
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Work and family, individuality and motherhood, the creative life and family life - women are told constantly that they can’t have it all. One Beautiful Dream is the deeply personal, often humorous tale of what happened when one woman dared to believe that you can have it all - if you’re willing to reimagine what having it all looks like. Jennifer Fulwiler is the last person you might expect to be the mother of six young children. First of all, she’s an introvert only child, self-described workaholic, and former atheist who never intended to have a family.
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A wonderful journey
- By Faith on 06-13-20
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The Spy Who Was Left Behind
- By: Michael Pullara
- Narrated by: Michael Pullara
- Length: 12 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
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On August 8, 1993, a single bullet to the head killed Freddie Woodruff, the Central Intelligence Agency’s station chief in the former Soviet Republic of Georgia. Within hours, police had a suspect - a vodka-soaked village bumpkin named Anzor Sharmaidze. A tidy explanation quickly followed: It was a tragic accident. US diplomats hailed Georgia’s swift work. Yet the bullet that killed Woodruff was never found, and key witnesses have since retracted their testimony, saying they were beaten and forced to identify Sharmaidze. But if he didn’t do it, who did?
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great book needs a hires narrator
- By Blake Dahl on 11-17-18
By: Michael Pullara
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The Language of Butterflies
- How Thieves, Hoarders, Scientists, and Other Obsessives Unlocked the Secrets of the World's Favorite Insect
- By: Wendy Williams
- Narrated by: Angela Brazil
- Length: 8 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
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Butterflies are one of the world’s most beloved insects. From butterfly gardens to zoo exhibitions, they are one of the few insects we’ve encouraged to infiltrate our lives. Yet, what has drawn us to these creatures in the first place? And what are their lives really like? In this groundbreaking audiobook, New York Times best-selling author and science journalist Wendy Williams reveals the inner lives of these "flying flowers" - creatures far more intelligent and tougher than we give them credit for.
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Informative story
- By Jennifer Baratta She/Her on 06-18-20
By: Wendy Williams
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What's So Funny?
- A Cartoonist's Memoir
- By: David Sipress
- Narrated by: T. Ryder Smith
- Length: 7 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
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David Sipress, a dreamer and obsessive drawer living with his Upper West Side family in the age of JFK and Sputnik, goes hazy when it comes to the ceaselessly imparted lessons-on-life from his meticulous father and the angsty expectations of his migraine-prone mother.
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A charming story, read and performed beautifully
- By seriousart on 02-21-23
By: David Sipress
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Where You End and I Begin
- A Memoir
- By: Leah McLaren
- Narrated by: Leah McLaren
- Length: 8 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
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When her daughter is eight, Leah McLaren’s mother abruptly fled her life as rural house wife in search a glamorous career in the city. In the chaotic years that follow, Cecily lurches from one apartment, job and toxic romance to the next. In a home without rules or emotional boundaries, Leah and Cecily become confidants—a state of enmeshment that suits them both. Their bond is loving but also marked by casual indifference. Cecily’s self-described parenting style of “benign neglect” is a hilarious party joke, but for her daughter it’s reality.
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Great narration
- By Christine on 10-18-24
By: Leah McLaren
What listeners say about The Family Outing
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- A W A
- 02-18-24
The bonds between siblings
Sweet book. Filled with heart, hard lessons, losses and love. A family struggles to remain a family despite many unexpected twists. Beautiful.
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- Avid Reader
- 11-03-23
Wonderfully told.
A compelling and wonderfully told memoir about the deepest truths of our lives and honoring the people we are always becoming.
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- Harry Potter
- 02-27-25
Reflective and open
I found this account to be an honest and reflective dive into the fascinating perspectives of a family coming to grips with unmet expectations and taking ownership over their own growth and futures. It was beautiful inside and out.
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- keneth
- 03-18-24
sensitive account of a family who all came out
Jessi Hempel does an admirable job writing and narrating about her family who all held secrets of one type or another mostly about not being straight and cisgendered. IN spite of the challenges all the siblings and parents faced growing up, Jessi outlines a family, particularly a set of siblings, who know how to communicate and really value each other as people. Rarely self pitying and replete with characters one wants to root for, "Family Outing" is a triumph of strength, not just for the author but all in the family orbit.
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- Lou
- 01-27-23
Learned “Coming Out” is not what I always thought…
It’s my first time writing a review for a book. But after attending a book interview with her, if I liked the book before, I loved it even more after. With her reading the last 1 hour, it was like a friend was there reading it to me. Jessi Hempel’s live chat about her whole family’s coming out was candid and showed what the book talks all throughout. Coming “out of the closet” is so much more than announcing your sexual preference or identity to one person or the world, but you have to read the book to find out what i mean. Loved the respect towards every one of her family members how she addressed them throughout the book, each one’s unique identity. She was so blessed to count with the support and memories of everyone in her family to make this touching and sometimes even funny book about families all throughout US that live like this, maybe your neighbor and you don’t even know it, nor they… I’m not much into memoirs, but this one I listed to the 10 hrs and will recommend to anyone with a queer member and/or mental health parent.
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1 person found this helpful
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- Sara I. Cooper
- 11-02-24
Finding Your Authentic Self Through Love
Jessie Hempel does an excellent job of explaining how people "come out of the closet." The narrative is well-written and includes vivid, relatable situations that readers can easily understand. As an exploration of the LGBTQ experience, it captures what life feels like for those trying to live true to themselves in the real world. However, this book resonates beyond the LGBTQ community, making it relevant for anyone seeking to live their true, authentic life.
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- Cara Hart
- 03-18-24
Would have been a higher rating if they left the first two hours out.
The history of their parents seemed to have very little to do with the story.
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