Nancy Rappaport

Harvard Book Store is very pleased to welcome back local child psychiatrist NANCY RAPPAPORT as she discusses her memoir In Her Wake: A Child Psychiatrist Explores the Mystery of Her Mother's Suicide, newly out in paperback.

Nancy Rappaport was just four years old when her mother—a prominent Boston activist and socialite—committed suicide. Decades later, Rappaport, a child psychiatrist with three children of her own, pieced together a complex mosaic of her "mama." In Her Wake sheds light on the nature of hurting and healing, and is a potent reminder that love outlasts death.

"In a fearless memoir of loss and grief, this Harvard Medical School assistant prof, veering between 'being a detective and . . . a realist,' delves into a complex family history haunted by the 1963 death of her mother, a Boston socialite, from an overdose when the author was only four. . . . Rappaport weaves a stunning narrative of perspective, profound sadness, and unrelenting hope: 'I keep trying to follow in her wake, moving in and out of my grief buoyed by the voyage of exploring her dark reality as a way of helping myself to understand her.' She has also mapped an inspiring course for anyone to dissect family dynamics and mental illness, hoping to understand and, finally, accept." —Publishers Weekly