Falling Together

Donna McCart Sharkey grew up in Montreal and now lives in Ottawa. She holds a Ph.D. from the University of Ottawa and her research includes studies conducted with war affected girls and young women. Her research has been published in numerous academic journals and she has contributed to various anthologies. Prior to retirement, she was a professor at The State University of New York. She is the mother of Alessandra and Renata.

In spare, tensile, and perfectly calibrated fragments, Falling together: a family's story of mental illness and grief bears witness to the shame, rage, grief, and wrenching loneliness of losing a child to mental illness. But more than that, it resurrects the loved one in all her vulnerability and contradictions—joyful dancer, patient bird-whisperer, generous friend, desperate leaper from high places. Heartbreaking and beautifully written, woven with equal parts love and pain, this book will leave you with renewed respect for anyone who lives with mental illness, and renewed appreciation for the power of language to express what may seem beyond the reach of words.- Susan Olding, author of Pathologies: A Life in Essays // Nothing can invade a home with greater force than mental illness. In Falling together: a family's story of mental illness and grief, Donna McCart Sharkey explores love and anguish with equal passion. This book is mandatory reading for anyone who has lost a family member to mental illness. - Lynne Van Luven, professor emerita, Department of Writing, University of Victoria // Falling Together is gripping. Like a mystery novel, her daughter’s death is immediately signaled, but the accruing “whys,” from pre-adoption trauma to the medical system’s failures, draw us in. As we read, hope haunts us. Delight in her daughter wrestles with Sharkey’s increasing despair, then profound grief, but it’s her mother’s delight that endures. Beautifully written—it’s a keeper. - Betsy Warland, Author of Lost Lagoon/lost in thought