WSJ reporter Katherine Rosman investigates her mother's life

Katherine Rosman's new book, If You Knew Suzy, exists because of her mother's death from cancer, but it's a portrait of a woman that positively crackles with life.

Rosman applies her training as a reporter to investigate everything about her mother's life she didn't (and couldn't) know as a daughter. "I could consider my mom as it hadn't occurred to me to do before," writes Rosman "as someone who could be defined by more than motherhood. At the same time, I could test a theory I've long held as a reporter: that when you're willing to spend the time to peel back the layers, even seemingly conventional players are revealed to be complex; that ordinary people can lead quietly extraordinary lives."

What results is a good-humored portrait of a woman as firecracker, equal parts badass and pain-in-the-ass. If You Knew Suzy is forthright and funny, an honest look at not only the relationship between mother and daughter, but of a mother as a woman. In other words, if you haven't bought a Mother's Day present yet, the search ends here.

What was the biggest surprise you came across in your research about your mom?

I could not believe the sheer number of young women - along with a few men - who Mom had taken under her wing during the course of her adult life. When she happened upon young people in whom she saw potential, she quietly nurtured them until they saw it in themselves. A teenage girl who wasn't sure if she was smart enough to go to college until told by my mom-raised in Ann Arbor and a University if Michigan graduate: "Oh you're Michigan material!" A young man who had traveled the world and run in some pretty exotic circles as a professional hip-hop dancer who was struggling to become the kind of father his little boy needed. Overweight girls to whom gave dozens of free Pilates lessons. There were so many people I interviewed who said, "Your mom told me not to tell anyone but that I didn't need to pay her for lessons because she liked my energy." As a businesswoman, Mom was a very good philanthropist.

Did anything come up in the course of your research that you wished you'd been able to talk to/ask your mom about?

Often, I felt awash with the sense that I was doing something that I could only do in absence of Mom. First, I probably would not have had the need to understand her better if she were still here with me, if I'd continued to have the luxury of taking her for granted. And if she were alive, I would've been bound by the narrative of her life-something I was aiming to go beyond. I had a consciousness through much of the process of the irony that I was getting to know my mom in a way that I simply couldn't have done were she alive.

Having said that, there were hundreds of moments during the process of writing and reporting this book during which I wanted to call and ask, "Why were you confiding in strangers about your fears of dying when all I wanted was to have those intimate conversations with you?" and to say, "Remember Julie Korotkin who beat you in the finals of the golf club championship every single year? I interviewed her about why you always choked!"

How, if at all, has this experience changed the way you will reveal yourself to your own children?

I'm more worried about what I've revealed already … God help me when my kids read in the "Grandma Suzy Book" (as they and their cousins call it) that Mommy lost her virginity at 15 and lied about having
parties for drunk high-schoolers!

While writing the book, I felt a need to tell my four-year-old son, Ari, a lot about my mom. My need for him to know her - she died before he was born - was so powerful and I indulged it without thinking of any consequence. And there were some: he got really confused about where Grandma Suzy is, why she can't text message us from her iPhone in heaven (kids these days!) and whether all mommies die before their
kids want them to. Unknowingly, I put my need for him to know her above his need to be treated like a 4-year-old. I won't foist my emotional needs upon him again. But I hope I will answer any questions he has - any time and as honestly as I can.

It's funny how what we do with our kids boomerangs: I told my son once that had a special connection to Grandma Suzy because right before she died - and about 7-and-a-half months before he was born - she put her hand on my belly and communed with her grandchild. As I told him this, I placed my hand on his belly to demonstrate with Grandma did. For weeks after, when I would walk in the door from work, he would coming running to greet me with this request: "Let's play the Grandma Suzy's Dead Game! It's my favorite!" I never imagined I could laugh so hard at the idea of playing a game about my mom being dead.

What do you think Suzy would think about the book?

One of the things I am most proud of is the fact that there is plenty in the book that Mom would hate. I think she'd be irritated that I shared her moodiness with the world, and the way I openly discussed the body-imagery issues I faced as a result of some of her behavior. I think she'd have a tough time reliving some of the stories about her outsider-status in Detroit, when other women didn't show up at her parties and the comments from the boutique owners that Mom was always alone. And she'd probably want to kill me for much of my dissection of the Pilates world. But I set out to write a book that was honest and didn't give Mom the Lifetime TV treatment. And I think that is what I've done. (Sorry, Mom! You were a little nuts and I gotta call 'em like I see'em!)

Those sections notwithstanding, I think Mom would absolutely love this book. She would love the humor. She would love the powerful lessons that come from the lives of some of the people I tracked down-the golf caddie who overcame poverty to become one of the most powerful women in the automotive industry, the Haitian immigrant who worked his way to the very top of the American medical establishment, the southern Presbyterian ministers who example of survival helped assuage the grief of a young Jewish woman in New York. Mostly, Mom would love that something that might give comfort to others has come out of her death.

Learn more about Katherine Rosman and If You Knew Suzy at katierosman.com


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