Housden, Maria

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Housden, Maria

PERSONAL: Born in Traverse City, MI; married first husband, Claude (divorced); married Roger Housden; children: Hannah (deceased), three other children.

ADDRESSES: Home—Fair Haven, NJ. Agent—c/o Author Mail, Harmony Books, 1745 Broadway, New York, NY 10019. E-mail—[email protected].

CAREER: Writer. Lecturer and bereavement support group leader. Kimberly Fund, member of board of directors, 1995–99; Grief in Action (international grief support group), founder.

WRITINGS:

Hannah's Gift: Lessons from a Life Fully Lived, Bantam Books (New York, NY), 2002.

Unraveled: The True Story of a Woman Who Dared to Become a Different Kind of Mother, Harmony Books (New York, NY), 2004.

Hannah's Gift has been translated into fifteen languages.

SIDELIGHTS: Maria Housden writes honestly about some of the saddest and yet most revealing experiences in her life. Her first book, Hannah's Gift: Lessons from a Life Fully Lived, chronicles the last year of her daughter Hannah's life after she was diagnosed with cancer at the age of three. Housden shares the joys and the hardships of watching her child fight to live, as well as her ultimate acceptance and bravery in the face of her death. Although Housden, as the parent, attempted to be strong for her daughter and talked to her about the meaning behind what was happening to her, it was often Housden herself who learned lessons from her child, such as the importance of honesty and that it was all right to ask for the things that she wanted. A contributor to Kirkus Reviews remarked that the book is "unsentimental for the most part," adding that "this portrait of a short, joyous life can be comforting to anyone who has lost a child." In a review for Publishers Weekly, a contributor wrote that Housden's book provides "a lyrical, heartbreaking and heartwarming account of her three-year-old daughter's illness and death," while Booklist contributor David Pitt stated that "the reader who does not shed a tear while reading it is not human."

In the wake of her daughter's death, Housden decided to divorce her then-husband, Claude. She also allowed him to have primary custody of their remaining children, believing that she would be a better mother if given a certain amount of distance. Housden had met and fallen in love with Roger Housden, with whom she felt happy for the first time since before Hannah's death. Eventually, they married, and the couple moved across the country, with Housden visiting with her children on weekends. In Unraveled: The True Story of a Woman Who Dared to Become a Different Kind of Mother Housden explains her decisions and their consequences. In Kirkus Reviews, a contributor found fault with Housden's apparent rationalization of an extra-marital relationship as acceptable if it is motivated by love, stating that "her blasé acceptance of adultery, together with the suggestion that her affair was the transformative event that allowed her to discover her true self, rankles." However, a reviewer for Publishers Weekly found that "Housden's poignant, raw book has no easy answers for life's difficult moments, but her bravery will soothe those enduring similar trials."

Housden continues to work to enhance the quality of life for patients with fatal illnesses. She lectures frequently across the country, and has led bereavement support groups. In addition, she has taken several groups of women into Death Valley for spiritual, meditative journeys. On her home page, Housden stated, "Since Hannah's death, a stillness that she opened in me has become the foundation for a new life; a life that I sense had been living in me all along…. I no longer let my fears hold me back. I now know that there is a death more painful than the one that took Hannah's body from this world; a soul suffocated by fear leaves too many joys unlived."

Housden told CA: "From the age of twelve, I wanted to write a book, but it was my daughter Hannah's death from cancer at the age of three that became the catalyst for me as a writer. I believe that to write is to surrender to the truth in yourself at that moment, and the craft of writing involves the distillation of memory or inspiration to its essence. Poetry, with its fierce and direct use of language, inspires this perspective in my work.

"Writing has opened me to a new way of being in the world, for to write is to see, to see is to remember, and to remember is to arrive again in each moment as if for the first time. The Book of Psalms in the Bible is perhaps my favorite book, not only because its beauty has stood the test of time, but because it speaks to a mystery that, while I cannot see it or fully understand it, always challenges, comforts, and inspires me."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

BOOKS

Housden, Maria, Hannah's Gift: Lessons from a Life Fully Lived, Bantam Books (New York, NY), 2002.

Housden, Maria, Unraveled: The True Story of a Woman Who Dared to Become a Different Kind of Mother, Harmony Books (New York, NY), 2004.

PERIODICALS

Booklist, January 1, 2002, David Pitt, review of Hannah's Gift, p. 783.

Bookseller, July 26, 2002, review of Hannah's Gift, p. 31; September 6, 2002, review of Hannah's Gift, p. 10.

Kirkus Reviews, December 15, 2001, review of Hannah's Gift, p. 1738; March 15, 2005, review of Unraveled, p. 335.

Library Journal, May 1, 2005, Kay Hogan Smith, "Mama's Got a New Bag," review of Unraveled, p. 104.

Publishers Weekly, November 26, 2001, "The Nearly and Dearly Departed," review of Hannah's Gift, p. 54; April 18, 2005, review of Unraveled, p. 52.