Linda Gray Sexton is the daughter of Pulitzer Prize–winning poet Anne Sexton. She has written four novels, and her second memoir, Half in Love, was published by Counterpoint in January 2011. She lives in California.
Praise for Half in Love
"A clear and in–depth portrait of what it is like to attempt to
take one's own life and the ghastly legacy such an action leaves
the bereaved family. For anyone who wishes to understand what
drives a person to kill himself or herself, Half in Love brings a
deeper understanding of the illness than anything short of feeling
the urge to commit suicide oneself." —American Psychological
Association Review of Books
"A welcome personal look at the specter that haunts many families,
in which a parent's suicide can threaten the mental health of
descendants." —Booklist
"In a country where someone commits suicide every seventeen
minutes, where bipolar disorder is rampant and poorly understood,
Linda Sexton's beautiful book is a cry for health and sanity. It
will bring hope and understanding because it explains the way
suicide blights families from generation to generation." —Erica
Jong, author of Fear of Flying
"In her new memoir, Linda Sexton completes the circle opened up
with her stunning memoir, Searching for Mercy Street—but this time,
the woman whose torment she explores is not her mother, but
herself, and where her mother's story ended with despair, hers is
one of survival. With brutal honesty and total lack of self–pity or
sentimentality, Linda Sexton has dared to explore a subject more
taboo than almost any other: not only suicide, but what comes
after, for its survivors. This is a book that will speak to anyone
touched by the suicide of someone we knew or loved—as so many of us
have been." —Joyce Maynard, author of At Home in the World and To
Die For
"Half in Love is a gripping account of the legacy left by a
mother's suicide and an eloquent testament to a daughter's struggle
to wrench herself free of the damage left in the wake of turmoil.
Linda Sexton's determination to forge an identity independent of
suicide and destruction is powerful; her book is a vivid and
inspiring story of living through despair and coming out the
stronger for it." —Kay Redfield Jamison, author of An Unquiet Mind,
and Professor of Psychiatry, John Hopkins School of Medicine
"Linda Sexton is one hell of a brave writer. In her memoir, she
takes us on a harrowing journey, to the edge of death and then
beyond, to a new, safe place. She's now able to tell her story
about the entanglement with her mother's legacy—half in love with
easeful death.' It's a story that will reach deep into many
readers' hearts. She makes the telling of this tale an act of
grace, of art, of redemption." —Ellen Sussman, author of On a Night
Like This and the upcoming French Lessons
"This is an exquisitely crafted story that needs to be told: how
depression and suicide can be passed down through the generations.
The most loving, committed mother can suffer such intense pain that
all reason is blacked out and death seems the only answer. Linda
Sexton is unsparing in her honesty and unfailing in her eloquence
as she takes us from the descent to hell to the miracle of
recovery. After a siege of courting death, she comes to fall wholly
in love with life." —Sara Davidson, author of Leap! and Loose
Change
"Once again, Sexton has pulled off something truly remarkable—in
prose that is both graceful and raw she crafts powerful scenes that
vibrate with authenticity. I cannot recall a more riveting
description of a nearly lethal suicide attempt. The suspense leaps
off the pages, pages which the reader is now turning furiously.
Also powerful is her deep understanding of how suicide permanently
impacts the family through multiple generations and her
descriptions of self–stigmatization, which, by the way, belong in
mental health curricula." —Dr. Frederick K. Goodwin, MD, Professor
of Psychiatry, George Washington University, Former Director of the
National Institute of Mental Health
"Half in Love is a testament to the potentially mortal wounds that
suicide inflicts upon the living. Linda Gray Sexton has transformed
her emotional suffering into a memoir of stunning intimacy. Wise,
insightful, and unflinchingly honest, Sexton mines the depths of
the darkest despair and ultimately her own salvation. This is a
masterful work, beautifully written, by a brave soul of remarkable
talent." —James Brown, author of The Los Angeles Diaries and This
River
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