Susan Johnson Hadler

press release: A Room of One's Own is honored to welcome Susan Johnson Hadler to our store for a reading and booksigning from her memoir!

The Beauty of What Remains: Family Lost, Family Found is Susan Johnson Hadler's memoir about discovering missing members of her family and then bringing the family back together. Hadler's family once held its hurt close and kept pain private. After her father was killed just before the end of WWII, his memory was all but erased by Hadler's mother, a woman too grief- stricken to bear even mention of him. Hadler's youth, and much of her adult life, were marked by unanswered questions, unsettling silence, and absence. At age 50, just before the 50th anniversary of her father's death, and against her mother's will, Hadler went in search of her father.

In this remarkable remembrance, Hadler travels to Oklahoma, to Wisconsin, even to France and Germany-all in search of one man. What her process yields is a father-and two aunts, who were torn from the family by the shame of mental illness and by disagreements and rejections. The Beauty of What Remainsis a haunting, thought-provoking, and deeply moving book. It is also healing-full of forgiveness and hope. Guided by her meditation and Buddhist practice, Hadler transforms the family brokenness, making it possible for her to find the forgotten and embrace them with open arms.