"The email was from a woman named Susan Jordan. Her profile thumbnail showed an African American woman with large, thoughtful eyes and a soft half-smile. Even in miniature, she seemed warm and incisive, like someone who noticed things. And according to the email, she had noticed my book. Not vaguely. Specifically. She wrote about the "contrast between outward success and inner struggle." She described the relationship with Joanna as "layered with humor, discomfort, vulnerability, and growth.""
An early Wednesday morning brings a brittle creative mood and anxiety over unfinished projects. Sales figures for a memoir are checked repeatedly, turning numbers into judgments about whether the work found readers. The memoir centers on becoming legal guardian of Joanna, a previously unhoused neurodiverse woman in love with the narrator’s husband, framed as a dark buddy comedy about two middle-aged women with psychological problems. Over time, the narrator recognizes that Joanna’s unsettling qualities reveal how much the narrator’s personality depends on approval, competence, and managing others’ perceptions. A warm, incisive email from Susan Jordan praises the memoir’s contrast between outward success and inner struggle and highlights humor, discomfort, vulnerability, and growth in the relationship.
Read at Psychology Today
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