Author(s): Nancy Rappaport

Biographies & Memoirs

In 1963, Nancy Rappaports mother committed suicide after a bitter divorce and custody battle. Nancy was four years old. As one of eleven children in a prominent Boston family, Nancy struggled to come to terms with the reasons why her mother took her own life. After years spent interviewing family and friends, Rappaport uncovers the story of a conflicted and troubled activist, socialite, and community leader. Drawing on court depositions, her mothers unpublished novel, newspapers, and her own experiences, she highlights heartbreaking stories of a complicated life that played out in the public eye. Inspiring, honest, and engaging, Rappaports story sheds light on the agonizing nature of loss and healing, and reveals the permeable boundaries between therapists and the patients they treat.

About the author:
Nancy Rappaport is Assistant Professor of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School. She is Attending Child and Adolescent Psychiatrist in the Cambridge Public School System, Consultant to the Office of Special Education at Cambridge High School, Attending Psychiatrist and Mental Health Director at the Teen Health Centre in Cambridge Hospital, and Director of School Based Programs in Child Psychiatry at the Cambridge Health Alliance. She participates in various lectures and panels on childhood depression, aggression and violence, and mental illness in adolescents at the National Association of Social Workers (NASW), the Psychiatric and Mental Health Congress, the Massachusetts Medical Society, and more. This is her first book. She lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts.