Description: In the literature of childhood loss and adult redemption City of One stands as a remarkable and powerful addition. The memoir by Francine Cournos, a professor of clinical psychiatry at Columbia University, is an eloquent, clear-eyed look at the death of both her parents by the time she was eleven. Temporarily taken in by her mother's family, Cournos and her younger sister were then sent away to live with a foster family on Long Island. Looking back at these soul-shattering upheavals in her childhood, Cournos is able to unlock and reveal a child's emotional landscape as we rarely see it. Feelings of guilt, unworthiness, mistrust, and confusion are heartbreakingly rendered. And so is Cournos's determined journey toward academic achievement and personal success, which led her through a fierce adult depression to a final triumph over despair. Poignant and uplifting, City of One is a compelling study of the human ability to persevere in the face of overwhelming loss.

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