If You Knew Suzy: A Mother, a Daughter, a Reporter's Notebook

by Katherine Rosman

Overview

“Katherine Rosman has a great gift for articulating the yearnings of daughterhood and the mysteries of motherhood.”
— Jeffrey Zaslow, coauthor of The Last Lecture

“Katherine Rosman’s voice rings with truth, pain, and hard-won humor as she reports from the heart in this bold, cathartic tale of a daughter’s search to find meaning in her mother’s death.... This book beats with a heart of its own.”
— Janice Y.K. Lee, author of The Piano Teacher

In lively, intimate prose, Wall Street Journal culture reporter Katherine Rosman reconnects with her late mother by reporting on the life she led outside of her roles as mom and wife.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780061991226
Publisher:	HarperCollins Publishers
Publication date:	04/20/2010
Sold by:	HARPERCOLLINS
Format:	eBook
Pages:	320
File size:	411 KB

About the Author

A staff reporter for the Wall Street Journal, Katherine Rosman has written about popular culture for The New Yorker, the New York Times, and Elle magazine. A native of Michigan, she lives in New York with her husband and two children.

Table of Contents

1 PMS (Postmortem Shopping) 1

2 The Curses (and Occasional Blessings) of Being a Mother to Daughters 11

3 To Do: Promise Mom on Her Deathbed I Won't Write About Her Death, Write About Her Death 31

4 "…Love Like Your Heart Has Never Been Broken, and Dance Like No One Is Watching" 51

5 She Wore Missoni to Her Biopsy 75

6 Bed One Rules 109

7 Playing Golf at Augusta National, Kindness from Strangers, and Other Impossibilities 149

8 The Pilates Proselytizer 169

9 Vintage Glass, Fragile and Resilient. Like Mom 213

10 The House That Mom Built 233

11 The Golf Caddie Carries a Legacy 255

12 Ariella 293

Epilogue 301

Acknowledgments 303

About the Author 309

What People are Saying About This

Janice Lee

“Rosman’s voice rings with truth, pain, and hard-won humor. . . . [A] bold, cathartic tale of a daughter’s search to find meaning in her mother’s death. She tells of her mother’s virtues and flaws with unvarnished honesty ... This book beats with a heart of its own.”

Susan Orlean

“Frank, funny, keenly reported, but also deeply moving, Rosman’s book journeys into that mysterious territory-the nature of family and the substance of love.”

Isabel Gillies

“How marvelous to sit beside a daughter exploring her mother’s life. If You Knew Suzy is about the joys of a family balanced by the heartbreaking complexities of death. Rosman is a dogged reporter whose eye for wonderful detail is enriched by the love and empathy of a devoted child.”

Sloane Crosley

“If Katherine Rosman’s detailed and heartfelt tribute to her mother doesn’t make you want to hug your own, I don’t know what will.”

Christopher Walton

“More than mere memoir.... Rosman expertly counterbalances the bleak and grinding arc of her mother’s cancer with an inspiring tale of her quietly extraordinary life, and does so with irreverent humor, bracing honesty and the storytelling savvy of a veteran reporter.”

Jeffrey Zaslow

“Katie Rosman has a great gift for articulating the yearnings of daughterhood and the mysteries of motherhood. Reading her moving tale of discovery, we can’t help but contemplate the things we have yet to learn about our own parents-and about ourselves.”

Editorial Reviews

Wall Street Journal culture reporter Rosman uses her journalistic skills to work through her grief over the death of her mother at age 60 from lung cancer. In the Journal, the author wrote about attempts to better understand her mother through the perspective of those who knew her as a Pilates instructor and a collector of vintage glassware. Rosman is a solid writer and storyteller, and she portrays her mother as entertainingly sharp, even in her excruciating last days. Her reporting turns up some interesting stories. At Sloan-Kettering, where Suzy underwent aggressive surgery, a Haitian-born doctor whose humanity was a touchstone for the family truly understood their struggles-he had lost his own father to a rare cancer just weeks before. As Rosman continued her journey of discovery about her mother, some had doubts about her intentions. At a dinner party she met a man who "thought my premise-to use his term-was bullshit. ‘You're assuming the things you find out about have underlying meaning . . . But really you have no way of knowing what, if anything, any of your discoveries signify.' " The author admits that "he wasn't necessarily wrong," but "if you are open to finding meaning-which is almost always an exercise of faith and almost never an exercise in certainty-you might find meaning." Ultimately, this is not a book for skeptics; it's for readers who see in Rosman and Suzy something like their own relationship with their mother (or daughter), and who might need to be reminded that a mother is a person too. Offers some sweet illuminations, but a bit too light and friction-less for a book on death and mother-daughter relationships.

Kirkus Reviews

Rosman’s bittersweet search for meaning is compelling and at times hilarious…. These stories are about Suzy but also about a daughter whose compassionate (not to mention labor-intensive) reporting is her way of coping. They memorialize a woman who, even if you didn’t’ know her, begs to be remembered.

Elle

In this brave, funny, deeply moving memoir, [Rosman] shows readers how, even after death, love endures.

People (3 1/2 out of 4 stars)

In this brave, funny, deeply moving memoir, [Rosman] shows readers how, even after death, love endures.

People

In this brave, funny, deeply moving memoir, [Rosman] shows readers how, even after death, love endures.

People (3 ½ out of 4 stars)

After I picked up If You Knew Suzy, I couldn’t put it down. Katherine Rosman’s enthralling memoir presents a tender yet searching picture of a mother’s life, her death, and her lasting influence on her daughters.

Gretchen Rubin

"In this brave, funny, deeply moving memoir, [Rosman] shows readers how, even after death, love endures."

(3 1/2 out of 4 stars) - People Magazine

More than mere memoir.... Rosman expertly counterbalances the bleak and grinding arc of her mother’s cancer with an inspiring tale of her quietly extraordinary life, and does so with irreverent humor, bracing honesty and the storytelling savvy of a veteran reporter.

Christopher Walton

Katie Rosman has a great gift for articulating the yearnings of daughterhood and the mysteries of motherhood. Reading her moving tale of discovery, we can’t help but contemplate the things we have yet to learn about our own parents-and about ourselves.

Jeffrey Zaslow

Frank, funny, keenly reported, but also deeply moving, Rosman’s book journeys into that mysterious territory-the nature of family and the substance of love.

Susan Orlean

Rosman’s voice rings with truth, pain, and hard-won humor. . . . [A] bold, cathartic tale of a daughter’s search to find meaning in her mother’s death. She tells of her mother’s virtues and flaws with unvarnished honesty ... This book beats with a heart of its own.

Janice Lee

If Katherine Rosman’s detailed and heartfelt tribute to her mother doesn’t make you want to hug your own, I don’t know what will.

Sloane Crosley

How marvelous to sit beside a daughter exploring her mother’s life. If You Knew Suzy is about the joys of a family balanced by the heartbreaking complexities of death. Rosman is a dogged reporter whose eye for wonderful detail is enriched by the love and empathy of a devoted child.

Isabel Gillies