Harriet Brown

press release:

A Room of One's Own is thrilled to welcome Harriet Brown, author of Shadow Daughter: A Memoir of Estrangement!

The day of her mother’s funeral, Harriet Brown was five thousand miles away. To say that Brown and her mother had a difficult relationship is a wild understatement; the older Brown grew, the more estranged they became. By the time Brown’s mom died at age 76, they were out of contact. Yet Brown felt her death deeply, embarking on an exploration of what family estrangement means–to those who cut off contact, to those who are estranged, to the friends and family members who are on the sidelines. In Shadow Daughter: A Memoir of Estrangement, Brown interweaves her personal story with insight from researchers and clinicians to offer a startling perspective: That despite the very real pain that can come along with family estrangement, sometimes it’s the best, most positive choice.

Harriet Brown is the author of Body of Truth and Brave Girl Eating. She has edited two anthologies and has written for the New York Times Magazine, O Magazine, Psychology Today, Prevention, and many other publications. She is an associate professor of magazine journalism at the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications at Syracuse University.