Author: Suzan Saxman with Perdita Finn
St. Martin's Press
January 27, 2015
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Sadly memoirs are often written in a clunky tone and this is no different. The story itself is different but the "reading tone" is not.
Suzan claims to be a psychic from birth. Scary eyeless men over her bed, the dead walking through her life, the living asking for help. Her mother is suspicious and not supportive. She becomes on edge and guarded early on.
The story could be interesting, but the tone takes away. It is as when you are watching a cop show and the victim or criminal turns toward the camera and begins relaying in a deadpan voice the crime.
I do believe readers with a strong interest in psychic events will gravitate toward the book regardless.
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Book Description:
We all, as children, had our imaginary friends and monsters in
the closet. But for Suzan Saxman, those friends and monsters didn’t go
away—and they weren’t imaginary.
From an early age, Suzan knew
instinctively that she had to hide her true self. She couldn’t talk
about the specters who haunted her, waking and dreaming. In bed with a
childhood fever, winged beings guarded her; bullied and friendless at
school, she ate lunch silently under the steps of St. Theresa’s with the
ghost of a nun; paralyzed with fear, she woke each night to see a man
with no eyes, watching her; and she kept watch at the window, every day,
while her real father was at work and Steve, her other father, was with
her mother. It was the 1960s in suburban Staten Island and she tried to
hide it all—to silence the spirits, ghosts and her own developing
abilities to tap into people’s futures. She tried to be a daughter her
mother could love.
Now, with Perdita Finn, Suzan tells the story of her journey in The Reluctant Psychic, and
tries to make sense of her mother’s own personal buried secrets that
were never acknowledged. She tells of the joy and terror in seeing
things others couldn’t and understanding what no one else expected—and
the loneliness and sadness of possessing a tremendous gift. Through
powerful readings of others’ destinies interwoven with compelling
narrative, a reluctant psychic emerges into the light.