Suzanne Scanlon Shares Her Journey with Mental Health in Her New Memoir

Profiled in The Cut and Chicago Magazine, School of the Art Institute Chicago creative writing lecturer, Suzanne Scanlon, discusses her new memoir, Committed: On Meaning and Madwomen. Unlike her previous two novels, Her 37th Year, an Index and Promising Young Woman, Scanlon weaves together stories from her own life with responses to other writers and thinkers like Charlotte Perkins Gilman and Sylvia Plath. She dives deep into the three years she spent in a state mental institution after a suicide attempt in her early twenties. This memoir is not only about finding comfort in reading and writing but also tackles the downfalls of the American healthcare system and separating one's identity from their diagnosis. In other words, it is an insight into Scanlon’s empowering story of redemption.