Surviving Susan: A Mother Deals with the Death of Her Daughter and Reflects on Their Relationship

by Jackie Davis Martin

A call one morning, a sudden shift of plans, of being, of thinking. A mother learns that her only daughter has died, propelling her physical journey across the country to cope with the immediacy of death, and compelling her to find ways to live around that loss in the year that follows In presenting vignettes from their mutual, forty-year past, as well as her day-to-day efforts to assuage her grief, the narrator of Surviving Susan invites the readers into a candid examination of her own parenting. Told with honesty and directness, this memoir about surviving a death brings its focus characters to vivid life.

314 pages, Paperback

First published February 6, 2013

Reviews

[Nina · Rating 4 out of 5]

Jackie Davis Martin was courageous in sharing her despair over the sudden death of her adult daughter. The book chronicles not only her grief, but the mother-daughter relationship. This is so much more than a grief journey, it is a life journey, a testament to the depth of a mother's love.