Carswell, Sue 1962–

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Carswell, Sue 1962–

PERSONAL: Born 1962. Education: University of Vermont, received degree.

ADDRESSES: Agent—c/o Author Mail, Random House, 1745 Broadway, 18th Fl., New York, NY 10019.

CAREER: American Broadcasting System, New York, NY, former senior story editor of Good Morning America; People magazine, former correspondent; Vanity Fair, New York, NY, currently researcher and reporter. Has also worked as a book editor for a publisher.

WRITINGS:

Faded Pictures from My Backyard: A Memoir, Ballantine Books (New York, NY), 2005.

Contributing editor to O magazine.

SIDELIGHTS: As a journalist and television producer, Sue Carswell has contributed to numerous stories. In Faded Pictures from My Backyard: A Memoir she tells her own story growing up next door to an orphanage for troubled children. Her father oversaw the school that served these orphans, but this proximity proved more of a hindrance than a help to Carswell's curiosity. Her father absolutely forbade his own children from mixing with his students, fearing they would be a bad influence. As a result, noted a Publishers Weekly reviewer, "Though Carswell seems obsessed with orphans, she doesn't include much information on the Home." Instead, much of the memoir concerns her mother, herself an orphan, and her own struggles with psychiatric problems that mirrored those of her father's charges. She also tracks down some of the orphans to see how they have fared in adulthood. The result is a combination of memoir and reporting that "sinks into bathos and mawkishness as often as it rises to limn a searing memory or tie a loose emotional end off neatly," according to Booklist contributor GraceAnne A. DeCandido. A Kirkus Reviews contributor noted the "somewhat incohesive" nature of the book, but also called it a "historical record of import."