Month: May 2008

 

Interview with Susanna Sonnenberg

The Southeast Review Online, Spring 2008

Michiko Kakutani of The New York Times said of Susanna Sonnenberg‘s memoir: “Writing in sharp, crystalline prose, Ms. Sonnenberg… plung(es) readers into a sort of perpetual present tense in which we are made to experience, almost firsthand, the inexplicable and perverse behavior of an impossible woman from the point of view of her aghast, bedazzled—and immensely gifted—daughter.” In this interview, she talks candidly about the difficult process of crafting this startling memoir.

Q: You mention in the preface “(t)his is… subject to the imperfections of memory.” I think that the relationship between writing and memory is a dynamic, fluid process. So, I’m interested in what happened as you wrote this memoir… did your recollection of the events evolve or shift due to the act of committing them to paper?

Art gives you control. That’s part of why we make art, I think, so that we can hold and shape and come to terms with something that has had control over us.

Continue reading “Interview with Susanna Sonnenberg”

Breathing room: review of Susanna Sonnenberg’s memoir Her Last Death

The Jerusalem Post, May 23, 2008

Susanna Sonnenberg’s mother hovers between life and death after a car accident in Barbados. Sonnenberg decides not to sit vigil by her mother’s bedside. In a starkly honest voice she tells the reader, “I’m afraid my mother will die. I’m afraid she won’t.”

The reader is left with a simple question: why? The not-so-simple answer is what follows in this gripping memoir. A New York Times and Los Angeles Times best-seller, Her Last Death is Sonnenberg’s debut, which is almost hard to believe as she handles the difficult subject matter with such aplomb. In crisp prose and using precise and vivid details, she tells the story of the nightmare she has been unable to escape for much of her life – her megalomaniac mother.

Continue reading “Breathing room”