Faculty News

Shawn Discusses New Memoir on NPR

Author and music faculty member Allen Shawn discussed his newly released memoir Twin this week on NPR's Fresh Air with Terry Gross.

The book, which was recently excerpted in The New York Times, offers a poignant reflection on the inextricable bond and life-defining relationship Shawn has shared with his autistic twin sister, Mary, who was placed in an institution for the mentally disabled at the age of eight.

"It wasn't until I reached late middle age that I could even begin to acknowledge that being Mary's twin was a central fact, perhaps the central fact, of my life," Shawn writes. "All I did feel was a kind of blank place inside, where memories and feelings should have been."