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A gripping memoir that shows what freedom looks like when we choose to examine the uncomfortable past
Jane is to the world a charismatic personality - opinionated, an inner-city teacher and public activist, a lover of Italy, proud and successful ? who thrives on a carefully crafted life narrative. Susannah, her beautiful only daughter and her intended protéeacute;gé, senses the stricter, darker truth, and fights to resist the control imposed on her by her mother's narcissistic tale, especially as Susannah becomes a mother herself.
But then Jane at 75, healthy and fit, chooses suicide, leaving her daughter with grief and the unwelcome gift of 45 years of hidden diaries. Daring to "read" Jane after her death is like unlatching Pandora's Box. For a year, Susannah twists and turns to the truths she uncovers, comparing what she remembers with what her mother put down in words. As Susannah Kennedy re-lives her life through her mother's eyes, she grapples with the ties between mothers and daughters and the choices parents make.
About the author
Berkeley and Oxford-educated anthropologist
Susannah Kennedy was born in India and raised in the United States. Later, she traveled extensively on her own, first in Italy, and then through the Middle East and India, settling for two years in Egypt before becoming a reporter in Dallas, Texas. At Oxford University, she specialized in Arab culture and politics, receiving her DPhil in social anthropology. She and her psychoanalyst husband lived and worked in Germany, raising three children in a thatched-roof farmhouse in the countryside outside Hamburg. Her mother's suicide and its aftermath brought them back to Santa Cruz, California in 2017. They now reside in Marin County.
Summary
A gripping memoir that shows what freedom looks like when we choose to examine the uncomfortable past
Jane is to the world a charismatic personality – opinionated, an inner-city teacher and public activist, a lover of Italy, proud and successful – who thrives on a carefully crafted life narrative. Susannah, her beautiful only daughter and her intended protégé, senses the stricter, darker truth, and fights to resist the control imposed on her by her mother’s narcissistic tale, especially as Susannah becomes a mother herself.
But then Jane at 75, healthy and fit, chooses suicide, leaving her daughter with grief and the unwelcome gift of 45 years of hidden diaries. Daring to “read” Jane after her death is like unlatching Pandora’s Box. For a year, Susannah twists and turns to the truths she uncovers, comparing what she remembers with what her mother put down in words. As Susannah Kennedy re-lives her life through her mother’s eyes, she grapples with the ties between mothers and daughters and the choices parents make.
Foreword
2023 Marketing Plan: Reading Jane, Publication Date: September 5
- California 16-City Bookstore Tour (16 cities): September. Northern and Southern California
- Author Road Trip Tour (14 cities): October through early November. Montreal, New England and Eastern Seaboard. Includes events as well as bookstore meet & greets
- Regional Publicity and Media Interviews in tour regions, with concentration in San Francisco Bay Area
- Social Media Campaign, targeting bookstagrammers, booktokers, and Facebook users, giveaways on Goodreads and Instagram
- Shelf Talkers available for stores
- Inclusion in CALIBA 2023 Holiday Catalog as featured title
- Featured at CALIBA 2023 Fall Trade Show
- Regional and Women’s Magazines features
- Author Excerpts and Essays on: mother-daughter relationships, parenting, mothering, narcissistic mothers, elder suicide and choices in dying.
- Book Club Outreach; reading group discussion questions printed in book
- Library Market outreach, ad in Library Journal
- Trade Advertising in Publishers Weekly, Shelf Awareness, and with California Independent Booksellers Association
- Trade Reviews pursued in Publishers Weekly, Library Journal, Kirkus Reviews, Booklist, Shelf Awareness
- Galleys Available for sales force, major media, regional media, social media influencers, influential authors, booksellers and librarians; digital galleys also available for download through Edelweiss and NetGalley
