Linda Gray Sexton is the daughter of Pulitzer Prize–winning poet Anne Sexton. She has written four novels and two memoirs, Half in Love: Surviving the Legacy of Suicide and Searching for Mercy Street, both published by Counterpoint. She lives in Redwood City, California. Please visit lindagraysexton.com to learn more about Linda's books and connect with other readers.
Praise for Bespotted
"Bespotted is a delight and a book of wisdom for all those who love
dogs and people." —Erica Jong, author of Fear of Flying
"Linda Gray Sexton has added a moving and beautiful account to the
shelf of books about Dogs & Their Writers. Sexton became besotted —
hence her title, Bespotted — with Dalmatians as a child, and her
memoir–with–dogs is a chronicle of her deep connection to this
specific breed over time...It must have been extremely painful to
write some of these passages; to experience and re–experience the
shock and the grief of the untimely and unfair endings, the
vicissitudes of biology, the love that's given and received in
equal measure — here exquisitely re–imagined — between a keeper and
each of her dogs." — Los Angeles Review of Books
"Engaging memoir." —San Jose Mercury
"In Bespotted, Linda Gray Sexton slices to the heart of why the
dogs in our lives are so beloved. Each Dalmatian who walks onto the
page is a character in his or her own right. Bespotted is a love
story, an intriguing glimpse into the world of show dogs, and a
testament to the special provenance of dogs to guide humans through
the darkest moments in our lives. Beautifully written and deeply
felt." —Michelle Richmond, New York Times bestselling author of
Golden State and The Year of Fog
"Dog lovers, rejoice! Linda Sexton turns her literary attention to
the beloved Dalmations in her life. Bespotted is part memoir, part
love song to dogs, all wonderful." —Ellen Sussman, New York Times
bestselling author of A Wedding in Provence and French Lessons
"Bespotted is a brave and wonderful book. The first chapter about
the origin of the famous poem by Anne Sexton, "Live," is precious
both for the history it recounts with an authenticity nobody else
could claim, as well as for its insight into one of the great poems
of the language (hint: it is a poem made possible by dogs). Even
more importantly it recognizes something that is only now becoming
clear: dogs and humans are a single species, a manifestation of a
single love, and this book makes that clear in a rare way."
—Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson, author of When Elephants Weep and Dogs
Never Lie About Love
"As the author eloquently portrays, no other breed suited the
Sexton family as well...The bond between an animal and a human can
be extremely strong, and Sexton proves this without a doubt. A
heartfelt testimony about the importance of dogs, especially
Dalmatians, in one woman's life." —Kirkus Reviews
"Animal lovers will adore this emotional and touching story." —Real
Simple Magazine
"The inside look at the rarefied environment of dog shows is a
fascinating subplot; and the decisions that must be made as well as
the mechanics of breeding for show dogs will be eye–opening for
many dog lovers. Sexton's paeon to dalmatians, the dogs she feels
have genuinely saved her life, will resonate." —Nancy Bent
Praise for Half in Love
"A clear and in–depth portrait of what it is like to attempt to
take one's own life and the ghastly legacy such an action leaves
the bereaved family. For anyone who wishes to understand what
drives a person to kill himself or herself, Half in Love brings a
deeper understanding of the illness than anything short of feeling
the urge to commit suicide oneself." —American Psychological
Association Review of Books
"A welcome personal look at the specter that haunts many families,
in which a parent's suicide can threaten the mental health of
descendants." —Booklist
"In a country where someone commits suicide every seventeen
minutes, where bipolar disorder is rampant and poorly understood,
Linda Sexton's beautiful book is a cry for health and sanity. It
will bring hope and understanding because it explains the way
suicide blights families from generation to generation." —Erica
Jong, author of Fear of Flying
"In her new memoir, Linda Sexton completes the circle opened up
with her stunning memoir, Searching for Mercy Street—but this time,
the woman whose torment she explores is not her mother, but
herself, and where her mother's story ended with despair, hers is
one of survival. With brutal honesty and total lack of self–pity or
sentimentality, Linda Sexton has dared to explore a subject more
taboo than almost any other: not only suicide, but what comes
after, for its survivors. This is a book that will speak to anyone
touched by the suicide of someone we knew or loved—as so many of us
have been." —Joyce Maynard, author of At Home in the World and To
Die For
"Half in Love is a gripping account of the legacy left by a
mother's suicide and an eloquent testament to a daughter's struggle
to wrench herself free of the damage left in the wake of turmoil.
Linda Sexton's determination to forge an identity independent of
suicide and destruction is powerful; her book is a vivid and
inspiring story of living through despair and coming out the
stronger for it." —Kay Redfield Jamison, author of An Unquiet Mind,
and Professor of Psychiatry, John Hopkins School of Medicine
"Linda Sexton is one hell of a brave writer. In her memoir, she
takes us on a harrowing journey, to the edge of death and then
beyond, to a new, safe place. She's now able to tell her story
about the entanglement with her mother's legacy—half in love with
easeful death.' It's a story that will reach deep into many
readers' hearts. She makes the telling of this tale an act of
grace, of art, of redemption." —Ellen Sussman, author of On a Night
Like This and the upcoming French Lessons
"This is an exquisitely crafted story that needs to be told: how
depression and suicide can be passed down through the generations.
The most loving, committed mother can suffer such intense pain that
all reason is blacked out and death seems the only answer. Linda
Sexton is unsparing in her honesty and unfailing in her eloquence
as she takes us from the descent to hell to the miracle of
recovery. After a siege of courting death, she comes to fall wholly
in love with life." —Sara Davidson, author of Leap! and Loose
Change
"Once again, Sexton has pulled off something truly remarkable—in
prose that is both graceful and raw she crafts powerful scenes that
vibrate with authenticity. I cannot recall a more riveting
description of a nearly lethal suicide attempt. The suspense leaps
off the pages, pages which the reader is now turning furiously.
Also powerful is her deep understanding of how suicide permanently
impacts the family through multiple generations and her
descriptions of self–stigmatization, which, by the way, belong in
mental health curricula." —Dr. Frederick K. Goodwin, MD, Professor
of Psychiatry, George Washington University, Former Director of the
National Institute of Mental Health
"Half in Love is a testament to the potentially mortal wounds that
suicide inflicts upon the living. Linda Gray Sexton has transformed
her emotional suffering into a memoir of stunning intimacy. Wise,
insightful, and unflinchingly honest, Sexton mines the depths of
the darkest despair and ultimately her own salvation. This is a
masterful work, beautifully written, by a brave soul of remarkable
talent." —James Brown, author of The Los Angeles Diaries and This
River
Praise for Searching for Mercy Street
"Powerful and affecting . . . a candid, often painful, depiction of
a daughter's struggles to come to terms with her powerful and
emotionally troubled mother. Sexton writes with compelling urgency
and candor and has not tried to gloss over the difficulties of
their relationship or resolve the ambivalence of her own emotions.
Rather, she has set all these conflicts down on paper, leaving us
with a disturbing portrait or a mercurial, impossible, and magnetic
woman." —Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times
"A courageous journey into the dark terrain of remembering,
forgiving and healing through telling—a trait that is her
birthright." —People
"One never doubts that Linda Gray Sexton has told us the truth . .
. Her writing is at its best: lean, quick, tightly conceived . . .
The book almost reeks of authenticity. Searching for Mercy Street
is never less than fascinating." —The New York Times Book
Review
"This memoir has an urgency about it and it is to Sexton's credit
as an honest and largely unself–serving narrator that throughout
she has chosen to forgo the primitive gratification of scrawling
over the picture of her childish mother–worship with fat black
crayon; instead she continues to add strokes of color and lightness
to an ever–darkening portrait. By the book's end she has made her
way valiantly back to her mother, passing through the portals of
rage and despair before she glimpses the possibility of separating
out Anne Sexton's perverse influence from her legacy of delight in
words and experience . . . Searching for Mercy Street is suffused
with a complicated kind of love." —Daphne Merkin, The New
Yorker
"In this spectacular story of a glamorous, talented and beautiful
family veering toward disaster, Linda Sexton has broken the code of
silence which often surrounds the American home. In her powerful
and graceful prose, honed in four novels of her own, she has
quietly and lovingly told the story of her mother and the family
she loved both too much and too little. Any mother or daughter, any
child of an alcoholic parent, anyone who has lived with the
all–consuming obsession of a writer with their work, will recognize
themselves in this ravishing portrait." —Susan Cheever
"In this deft, beautiful memoir, Sexton covers difficult family
territory with unique grace." —New York Daily News
"Sexton has written about intense personal conflicts, evoked strong
emotion, and stayed true to it. The saga of this daughter and her
mother is inherently fascinating." —Chicago Tribune
"One of the most illuminating things here is that careful,
industrious Linda—who, as she grows older, bravely fights off her
own depressions, headaches, even suicidal thoughts, idolizing
normalcy', health, and domestic responsibility—seems a far better
writer than her mom." —Carolyn See, The Washington Post Book
World
"Linda Gray Sexton's exploration is so smart, so well–written,
moving, and generous that it transcends the typecasting that could
easily have become a trap . . . Written with grace, precision and,
most important, love." —Los Angeles Times Book Review
"Heroic." —New York Newsday
"This cathartic and anguish–filled book spares no details of the
mother's selfish and difficult personality or her intense and
fortifying love." —Library Journal
"In deceptively fluid prose, Linda explores her complex
relationship to her mother and strips raw the nerves of a troubled
family." —Kirkus (starred review)
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