Tiger, Tiger
A Memoir
by Margaux Fragoso

List Price: $26.00
Pages: 336
Format: Hardcover
ISBN: 9780374277628
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux

“In one of his suicide notes to me, Peter suggested that I write a memoir of our lives together, which was ironic. Our world had been permitted only by the secrecy surrounding it; had you taken away our lies and codes and looks and symbols and haunts, you would have taken everything.”

Margaux Fragoso was just 7 years old when she met Peter Curran. Her mother had taken her swimming near their home in Union City, New Jersey. The neighborhood pool was packed with kids, but it was 51-year-old Peter who caught Margaux’s attention. He was handsome and playful; both mother and daughter found themselves drawn to him. Soon they were making regular visits to his house, a getaway where fun and freedom reigned. Peter also gave them a chance to escape the ire of Margaux’s domineering, volatile father.

As Margaux succumbed to Peter’s manipulative charm, her fragile mother slipped further into mental illness. In a devastating paradox, her mother was obsessed with keeping lists of tragedies that made headlines. She never realized that a tragedy was unfolding right before her as Peter took possession of her little girl’s body, mind, and heart, inflicting untold damage over the next 14 years. An unprecedented glimpse into the psyche of a predator and his trusting prey, Tiger, Tiger is also an extraordinary testimony to the human capacity for healing.

Whether you embark on the book’s journey by yourself or with a group, this guide is designed to enhance your reading. We hope the following questions will enrich your experience of a childhood stolen and reclaimed.

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1. Margaux Fragoso loved storytelling and role playing as a child, and Peter exploited these creative traits. How did her gift for narrative ultimately become part of her healing? How can the vividly written scenes of her memoir help others face the truth with clarity and courage?

2. As the ones who stayed home while others provided for them, what common ground did Margaux’s mother and Peter share? What does Margaux’s story tell us about the way children are sometimes forced to take on a care giving role?

3. Margaux describes the intense exhilaration of being with Peter, a high that nothing else could match. When has someone tried to blur your concepts of joy and harm, making you vulnerable to this sense of exhilaration?

4. Peter’s many animals were part of the allure for Margaux. How did they reflect his relationship to her, marked by captivity? Did the sight of his caged, domesticated animals encourage her to fantasize about being a wild animal?

5. How did your impressions of Poppa shift throughout the memoir? Did you sympathize with him, or did you blame him for making his wife and daughter long to escape?

6. How did Tiger, Tiger change the way you think of your own childhood? When you were a child, were there any adults you could turn to no matter what, or were you on your own?

7. One of the most haunting aspects of Margaux’s story is that many adults came close to uncovering the truth; even after Peter abused his daughters, he escaped scrutiny and was still able to become a foster father. And even after serving a jail sentence because of accusations made by his foster child, he was able to continue his relationship with Margaux. How did Peter keep Margaux’s mother and Inès fooled? Did the social worker unwittingly undermine her case against Peter, or did he and Margaux simply outsmart her? After reading Tiger, Tiger, what do you think is the best way to be vigilant without wrongly accusing members of your community?

8. Margaux reveals the barter system Peter established, though in fact their arrangement cost her dearly. How did Peter “compensate” Margaux? Margaux liked to fantasize about being a fierce adult woman, savoring her secret “marriage” to Peter; he fantasized about precisely the opposite image of her. Beyond the realm of sex, how did they gratify each other? What kept Peter from rejecting Margaux even as she grew into her twenties?

9. Though Peter damaged all aspects of Margaux’s young life, from her ability to form supportive friendships to her faith in unconditional love, she proved repeatedly to be a survivor, even after attempting suicide. Where did this kernel of strength come from? What nurtures strength in even the most wounded among us?

10. How does Peter’s occupation as a locksmith serve as a metaphor for his pedophilia? What gave him the tools to unlock so many vulnerable people, gaining their trust? Do you think Margaux could ever have “changed the locks” on her psyche if Peter had not committed suicide?

11. What can we learn from Peter’s memories of being a victim of abuse throughout his childhood? What would it take to transform society’s approach to this addiction, putting faith in rehabilitation?

12. Peter insisted that he did not sexually abuse Ricky. How did you react to this? Regardless of those claims, what harm did Miguel and Ricky experience in Peter’s household?

13. What did Margaux’s parents teach her about the roles of men and women? Were any of their lessons accurate? Who were your most powerful role models? Did they teach you the truth about the world?

14. How does Margaux’s voice shift in the epilogue, in which she is clear-eyed about the utter vulnerability of a child and the complete blame that belongs to an adult abuser? While reading the memoir, did you ever find yourself vulnerable to Peter’s logic?

15. Now the mother of a little girl and the bearer of a PhD, Margaux Fragoso is living proof of the hope and healing that can emerge even after years of abuse. She credits her recovery to writing and therapy, including new techniques for trauma survivors. Do you know of someone who could benefit from these therapies? If so, how could you begin a conversation to put them on the road to recovery?

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"Tiger, Tiger will start a thousand conversations. Margaux Fragoso achieves the unthinkable with empathic clarity: she humanizes a pedophile. In doing so, she makes his crime unimaginably more frightening. Her portrayal of their relationship is shocking, revelatory, and fearless. As the story of a victim, it is gripping; as a work of literature, it’s a triumph."

— Alice Sebold, author of The Lovely Bones

"Once in a generation, an essential book --- a necessary book --- comes along and challenges our bedrock assumptions about life. Margaux Fragoso’s Tiger, Tiger is that book. Family life, the corruption of innocence, sexual abuse, pedophilia—all are unflinchingly yet exquisitely rendered as Fragoso experienced them. You will never view childhood the same way after reading Fragoso’s monumentally important book."

— Louise DeSalvo, author of Writing as a Way of Healing

"Tiger, Tiger is stunning, in all the possible manifestations of that word."

— Nick Flynn, author of Another Bullshit Night in Suck City

"You may think you’ve decided already about a child’s ordeal with a sexual predator, but under Margaux Fragoso’s command, you will consider the richest depths of experience, terrible, bright, and beautiful. Fragoso writes with unguarded grace and provides a voice --- real and haunting --- for those children, everywhere among us, who are deprived of theirs."

— Susanna Sonnenberg, author of Her Last Death