Her Last Death

Author: Susanna Sonnenberg
Genre: Memoir
Publisher: Scribner, 2008
Pages: 288
Rating: Recommend*

Synopsis: Her Last Death begins as the phone rings early one morning in the Montana house where Susanna Sonnenberg lives with her husband and two young sons. Her aunt is calling to tell Susanna her mother is in a coma after a car accident. She might not live. Any daughter would rush the thousands of miles to her mother's bedside. But Susanna cannot bring herself to go. Her courageous memoir explains why.

Glamorous, charismatic and a compulsive liar, Susanna's mother seduced everyone who entered her orbit. With outrageous behavior and judgment tinged by drug use, she taught her child the art of sex and the benefits of lying. Susanna struggled to break out of this compelling world, determined, as many daughters are, not to become her mother.

Sonnenberg mines tender and startling memories as she writes of her fierce resolve to forge her independence, to become a woman capable of trust and to be a good mother to her own children. Her Last Death is riveting, disarming and searingly beautiful.

Review: *I waffled on whether or not this should be a "Recommend" or "Do Not Recommend." Perhaps it receives both. If you are offended by "vulgar" language/sex/drug use, a book that is about a negligent mother who is heavily into cocaine and promiscuous sex is probably not your best choice of reading material. Therefore, I don't recommend Her Last Death. If you want to see what all the crazy is about, then read it. This is well-written, and my awestruck self couldn't read the pages quickly enough.

As a mother, there is simply no way I would raise my daughters as Susanna's mother raised hers. In fact, this memoir left me feeling sorry for Susanna and wondering how she could even "turn out" somewhat normal given her childhood, and it also left me wanting to read her mother's memoir. What happened in her past that made her the way she was? It's very strange.

I hung in there with Susanna and accepted her flaws, but I wanted there to be more about her revelation to change and how she did it. The lesson makes a memoir a memoir, and it just wasn't developed enough.