There will be a book discussion at the Hilton Head Island Branch Library (11 Beach City Road) on Friday, November 17, at 3 pm. The book will be Reading Jane, A Daughter's Memoir, by Susannah Kennedy. which is a gripping memoir about a mother's voluntary suicide and the ethics of end of life.
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. When she chooses suicide at 75, healthy and fit, she leaves her daughter Susannah 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, reliving her childhood through her mother’s eyes and piecing together secrets that appear to explain both her mother’s choices as she lived and her growing obsession with the Hemlock Society and Final Exit. Susannah weighs her mother’s fear of growing old and aging with the effects of suicide on Jane’s family and friends.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Berkeley and Oxford-educated anthropologist Susannah Kennedy was born in India before returning to the US. As an adult, Kennedy traveled extensively on her own, first in Italy, and then through the Middle East and India, settling for two years in Egypt before moving as a reporter to Dallas, Texas. At Oxford University, she specialized in Arab culture and politics, receiving her DPhil in social anthropology.
There is no need to register for this event.
