Susannah Kennedy, author of memoir Reading Jane, has won a Bronze IPPY Award for memoir, and a Gold Foreward Indie Award in Family & Relationships!
The IPPY Awards recognize “those who exhibit the courage, innovation, and creativity to bring about change in the world of publishing,” and award books in over 88 different categories nationally.
Read about Susannah’s IPPY win here!
Foreword Reviews, a book review journal focusing on independently published books, recognizes the best books published in 2023 from independent and university presses, as well as self-published authors with their INDIES awards. They award books in 55 categories.
Read about Susannah’s Foreword INDIE award here!
Reading Jane is a gripping memoir that shows what freedom looks like when we choose to examine the uncomfortable past.
About Reading Jane: A Daughter’s Memoir:
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. This process, accompanies by strange physical symptoms—memories awakening in the body—forces an understanding, allowing Susannah to calm herself and work through each of them, finding ultimately that truth wins out. As Susannah Kenney re-lives her life through her mother’s eyes, she grapples with the ties between mothers and daughters and the choices parents make.
Buy the AWARD-WINNING memoir here!
