Empty

A Memoir

De: Susan Burton

Narrado por: Susan Burton

An editor at This American Life reveals the searing story of the secret binge-eating that dominated her adolescence and shapes her still.

“Her tale of compulsion and healing is candid and powerful.” (People)

Named One of the Best Books of the Year by Marie Claire

For almost 30 years, Susan Burton hid her obsession with food and the secret life of compulsive eating and starving that dominated her adolescence. This is the relentlessly honest, fiercely intelligent story of living with both anorexia and binge-eating disorder, moving past her shame, and learning to tell her secret.

When Burton was 13, her stable life in suburban Michigan was turned upside down by her parents’ abrupt divorce, and she moved to Colorado with her mother and sister. She seized on this move west as an adventure and an opportunity to reinvent herself from middle-school nerd to popular teenage girl. But in the fallout from her parents’ breakup, an inherited fixation on thinness went from “peculiarity to pathology.”

Susan entered into a painful cycle of anorexia and binge eating that formed a subterranean layer to her sunny life. She went from success to success - she went to Yale, scored a dream job at a magazine right out of college, and married her college boyfriend. But in college the compulsive eating got worse - she’d binge, swear it would be the last time, and then, hours later, do it again - and after she graduated she descended into anorexia, her attempt to "quit food".

Binge eating is more prevalent than anorexia or bulimia, but there is less research and little storytelling to help us understand it. In tart, soulful prose Susan Burton strikes a blow for the importance of this kind of narrative and tells an exhilarating story of longing, compulsion and hard-earned self-revelation.

©2020 Susan Burton (P)2020 Random House Audio

Potently relatable and introspective

It’s wonderful to hear the book from Susan’s own voice. Her honesty with herself and her audience is remarkable.

A very good book

I appreciate how elaborate this book is. I completely related to Susan’s way of thinking as a child, both related and unrelated to food, and especially in her perspectives of the tiny details. I thoroughly enjoyed listening and couldn’t put it down. I love that she was able to articulate her battles with food and her body once and for all, and I hope it liberated her rather than fed her illness. I find it only slightly triggering but only in the sense that I have an eating disorder, and I’m reading about a woman’s experience with an eating disorder. It did not trigger me in a way where it fed my illness. It did not offer tips or tricks. It did not cause harm. It was simply a very enjoyable book, that I related with. And would recommend it to others who are able and ready to read a book that was about a woman’s battle with eating disorders.

I Know Her

I wasn't sure what to expect and found her story deeply satisfying. She wasn't alone and yet, she was. She isn't me and yet, she is.

Brutally honest

I'm currently in Spain, enjoying my time here as an for a month. I felt the need for something engaging to immerse myself in. At this stage in my life, I'm open and eager to explore ED which has shaped me from age 15 to now, as I'm in my middle years. Everything she shared resonated deeply with me. I'm truly grateful she chose not to focus on the numbers on the scale because that can be triggering; instead, her honesty, intelligence, and vulnerability were incredibly powerful. Bravo to her!

This book helped me tremendously . I don’t know if I’ll ever be out of the woods. I’ll probably have distorted images of myself and peculiar relationships w/ food. I think the bottom line is her memoir gives me hope.

Superbly written and full of self-reflection

4.5/5: This book really surprised me in a good way. It turned out to be so much more thorough and self-reflective than I expected. Memoirs can tend to be just a telling of a story without much insight. Burton offers a lot of insight and I found that fascinating. She is able to walk you through how a somewhat normal adolescent thought takes on a life of its own and slowly morphs into a fixation and then a compulsion. I felt like I was front row to that progression and while it isn't my experience, I understood it. I also resonated a lot with her disordered relationship with food and came to understand elements in my own life and relationship with food better. I read some criticism that the book felt cold and impersonal. I can see how some might experience it that way, but I think I understood that Burton is in the world of journalism so her style in this book was influenced by that I believe and not a reflection on how she related to her own story. I also felt that the criticisms of not enough focus on the now were unfair - she clearly states she sees a therapist and continues to wrestle with her relationship with food. That is the nature of an addiction - it is an ongoing battle. Overall, I found this book to be superbly written, well thought out, and intensely personal but applicable to so many (myself included).

Big thanks Susan!

This book blew my mind. I felt guilty being so far into Susan's head. Thank you again Susan, it was a great listen.

“I’m glad I have thin grandchildren.”

I’ve been listening to Susan Burton on This American Life for 20 years. She’s always been a standout producer, her writing is top notch, and I find her precise, nuanced style of speech compelling.

I didn’t know she’d written a book until she guest hosted the 2/19/21 episode of This American Life, Secrets — I bought and devoured it immediately.

Empty is a personal history of Burton’s (and also our) complicated and sometimes destructive relationship with food. And it documents the nature and long term consequences of keeping secrets in a way I so relate to. The story has momentum, and is impeccably edited, like her radio pieces.

Empty is an emotional and moving book, yes, but it’s also filled with wry observations and dark humor. I loved it. 10/10.

Amazing

Amazing story telling. So glad I found this book. The author spoke about things I’ve never been able to say out loud.

A detailed glimpse into life with anorexia/bulimia

This is obviously a very personal work, and parts seemed to provide a detailed glimpse into what life is like for someone with an eating disorder. Other parts of the book seemed obsessively repetitious. The story ended when the author was a young adult, with little about how her eating disorder affected being a wife and mother. Other than finding an empathic analyst, it's not clear to me what an effective treatment of eating disorders involves.

One of the best books on EDs

One of the best books I've read on ED's. The author writes and speaks about her experiences with anorexia and BED with such raw emotion. There were several parts of the book that I found myself crying because I related to what the author wrote, but have never heard those feelings and emotions put into words. Such an amazing book!