In Her Wake

In 1963, Nancy Rappaport’s mother committed suicide after a bitter public divorce and court battle. Nancy was just four years old and the youngest of six children. Growing up in a blended family of eleven children after her father remarried, Nancy was bewildered about why her mother took her own life and left her behind.

Years later, encouraged by her own children’s curiosity about their grandmother, and fortified by her training as a child psychiatrist, Nancy began to investigate her mother’s life and the mysteries surrounding her death.

Pursuing clues and following leads, Rappaport pieces together In Her Wake a complex mosaic of her mother. Drawing on court depositions, newspaper coverage, her mother’s unpublished novel, and interviews with family and friends, she uncovers the story of a conflicted and troubled activist, socialite, and community leader. Rappaport explores the impact of her mother’s suicide from the perspective of a daughter, psychiatrist, wife, and mother of three—illuminating in the process the complicated nature of loss, reconciliation, and healing.

Inspiring, honest, and engaging, In her Wake is a powerful testament to a woman’s search for answers, and a potent reminder that love outlasts death.

Nancy Rappaport is Assistant Professor of Psychiatry at the Cambridge Health Alliance. She lives with her family in Cambridge, Massachusetts.