In Her Wake
A Child Psychiatrist Explores the Mystery of Her Mother's Suicide
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- $10.99
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- $10.99
Publisher Description
In 1963, Nancy Rappaport's mother committed suicide after a bitter divorce and custody battle. Nancy was four years old. As one of eleven children in a prominent Boston family, Nancy struggled to come to terms with the reasons why her mother took her own life. After years spent interviewing family and friends, Rappaport uncovers the story of a conflicted and troubled activist, socialite, and community leader. Drawing on court depositions, her mother's unpublished novel, newspapers, and her own experiences, she highlights heartbreaking stories of a complicated life that played out in the public eye. Inspiring, honest, and engaging, Rappaport's story sheds light on the agonizing nature of loss and healing, and reveals the permeable boundaries between therapists and the patients they treat.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In a fearless memoir of loss and grief, this Harvard Medical School assistant prof, veering between "being a detective and... a realist," delves into a complex family history haunted by the 1963 death of her mother, a Boston socialite, from an overdose when the author was only four. Using her mother's words from newspaper clippings, notes and a novel she was writing at the time of her death, Rappaport, the youngest of six children, reconstructs a vivacious and deeply troubled wife and mother. "Didn't she know that she would leave all these shattered children wondering if it was their fault?" son Jerry laments 44 years later. Yet in pushing through her parents' turbulent marriage and troubled family history, Rappaport weaves a stunning narrative of perspective, profound sadness and unrelenting hope: "I keep trying to follow in her wake, moving in and out of my grief buoyed by the voyage of exploring her dark reality as a way of helping myself to understand her...." She has also mapped an inspiring course for anyone to dissect family dynamics and mental illness, hoping to understand and, finally, accept. 8 pages of b&w photos.
