I'm inordinately proud of my dear friend Suzanne Maggio as she celebrates her debut book launch this week. Her first book, The Cardinal's Club, A Daughter's Journey to Acceptance — published by Adelaide Books, is an extraordinarily vivid and riveting memoir, a story that will make you laugh and cry.
After Suzanne's demanding and self-absorbed mother developed dementia, the author was compelled to apply the wisdom she'd acquired from decades of experience as a family therapist to her own family.
As one of Suzanne's early readers, I loved her beautifully detailed, tender, compassionate re-examination of a complex mother/daughter relationship. The Cardinal Club is written with graceful prose and kindness — a guidebook to rethinking self-worth through our reactions to loss and grief.
I especially enjoyed Suzanne's nostalgic and moving depiction of her New Jersey Italian/American childhood in the 1960s and 70s as well as her evocative family trips to Italy. Her attention to detail as a memoir writer is remarkable.
After a 30 year career as a licensed clinical social worker, Suzanne now trains the new generation of helpers as a university lecturer in Psychology, Counseling and Social Work here in Sonoma County. The granddaughter of Italian immigrants, she grew up understanding the importance of family and the pleasures of gathering around a dining room table laden with good company and delicious food.
"I have long been fascinated with the human condition, the ability we have to face enormous struggles and come through them, often the stronger for it," says Suzanne. "I have seen it over and over again in the people I've worked with. Resilience humbles me. We are stronger than we know."
Click here to purchase The Cardinal's Club, A Daughter's Journey to Acceptance by Suzanne Maggio, now available on Amazon.com and other major online retailers.
Hopefully our local bookstores will be on board in ordering copies in support of local authors such as Suzanne who have moved small mountains in getting important new stories into print.
Click here for Suzanne's website.
photo: Sara Rosalsky
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