Suzanne Scanlon, author of COMMITTED - an in-person Boswell event

Boswell hosts an evening with Chicago novelist Suzanne Scanlon for a conversation about her first book of nonfiction, Committed: On Meaning and Madwomen. In conversation with Wisconsin journalist Meg Kissinger, author of While You Were Out.

When Suzanne Scanlon was a student at Barnard in the 90s, grieving the loss of her mother - feeling untethered and swimming through inarticulable pain - she made a suicide attempt that landed her in the New York State Psychiatric Institute. After nearly three years, Suzanne left the ward on shaky legs. In the decades it took to recover, Scanlon came to understand her suffering as part of something larger: a long tradition of women whose complicated and compromised stories of self-actualization are reduced to "crazy chick" and "madwoman" narratives. Soon, journey of Scanlon’s life converged with her journey through the literature that shaped her. Transporting, honest, and graceful, Committed is a story of discovery and recovery, reclaiming the idea of the madwoman as a template for insight and transcendence through the works of Virginia Woolf, Sylvia Plath, Audre Lorde, and others.

From Pulitzer-winning author Natasha Trethewey: "Scanlon’s memoir Committed is a lyrical and illuminating account of a young woman’s struggle with mental illness and institutionalization… Scanlon questions the cultural conversations around women and mental illness, framing a compelling narrative of her own recovery and redemption."

Suzanne Scanlon is author of the novels Promising Young Women and Her 37th Year, An Index, and her writing has appeared in Granta, BOMB Magazine, and the Los Angeles Review of Books, among other places.

from Boswell. Signed copies and personalization available on pre-orders. Please note that signed copies will not be shipped until after the event.

Event Venue

Boswell Book Company, 2559 North Downer Avenue, Milwaukee, United States