Suzanne Scanlon

Suzanne Scanlon (born 1971) is an American author of fiction and non-fiction. She is known for her memoir Committed: On Meaning and Madwomen.

Early life and education

Scanlon grew up in Chicago with a physician father and a nurse mother. Her mother died of cancer when she was a child. She moved to New York for her undergraduate degree, and obtained a BA in English in 1996 from Barnard College. She received a MFA+MA in Creative Writing from Northwestern University.

Work

She is the author of the novels Her 37th Year, An Index  and Promising Young Women. and the book Committed: On Meaning and Madwomen. She describes her experience as a psychiatric patient at a time when long-term hospitalizations were disappearing, exploring their impact on recovery. The memoir considers writers including Sylvia Plath and Janet Frame in relation to diagnosis and institutionalization.

Reception

Committed: On Meaning and Madwomen received coverage from several literary and cultural publications. In The Cut, Emily Gould described the memoir as an account of psychiatric hospitalization that examines institutional authority and women’s experiences of mental illness, calling it “a deep, sometimes harrowing book about loss, grief, and the way literary representations of mental illness shaped Scanlon's experience of her own life.” A review in Los Angeles Review of Books discussed the memoir’s engagement with literary representations of madness and recovery. Chicago Reader emphasized the book’s focus on reading and writing as forms of survival and self-definition.

Scanlon’s earlier fiction has also received critical acclaim. Reviewing Her 37th Year, An Index in Chicago Tribune, Kathleen Rooney noted the novel’s experimental structure and its treatment of grief, memory, and identity.

Scanlon’s work has also been discussed in academic and performance studies contexts. Writing in PAJ: A Journal of Performance and Art, Andrea Kleine examined Her 37th Year, An Index alongside contemporary performance work, discussing its fragmented structure and autobiographical form. In Performing Autobiography: Narrating a Life as Activism, Katrina M. Powell included Scanlon among contemporary writers “performing innovative auto/biographical writing.”

Bibliography

Fiction

  • Promising Young Women (Dorothy, 2012) ISBN 978-0-374-14837-9
  • Her 37th Year, an Index (Noemi, 2015) ISBN 978-0-374-14837-9

Nonfiction

References

  1. 1 2 3 Heald, Diana (2024-05-05). "Working the Trap: On Suzanne Scanlon's "Committed"". Los Angeles Review of Books. Retrieved 2026-04-29.
  2. ↑ Lou, Jo (2024-07-23). "Suzanne Scanlon's Memoir Confronts the Stories We Don't Tell About Women and Madness". Electric Literature. Retrieved 2026-04-29.
  3. ↑ Grady, Constance (2024-07-20). "The best books of the year (so far)". Vox. Retrieved 2026-10-24.
  4. ↑ Lillibridge, Lara (2024-04-04). "INTERVIEW: Suzanne Scanlon, Author of Committed: On Meaning and Madwomen | Hippocampus Magazine". Retrieved 2026-04-29.
  5. ↑ Greene, Ginger (2025-03-27). "An Interview with Suzanne Scanlon". Believer Magazine. Retrieved 2026-04-29.
  6. ↑ "PUBLICATIONS BY GRADUATE ALUMNI: Department of English - Northwestern University". english.northwestern.edu. Retrieved 2026-04-30.
  7. 1 2 3 Rooney, Kathleen (2015-05-21). "Review: 'Her 37th Year, An Index' by Suzanne Scanlon". Chicago Tribune. Retrieved 2026-04-29.
  8. ↑ Yoder, Anne K. (2013-02-28). "Reading for Instructions on How to Live: The Millions Interviews Suzanne Scanlon". The Millions. Retrieved 2026-04-29.
  9. ↑ Kavanagh, Adalena (2015-07-14). "Grief is Where We Live, an interview with Suzanne Scanlon, author of Her 37th Year". Electric Literature. Retrieved 2026-04-29.
  10. ↑ "Promising Young Women". New York Review Books. 2012-10-01. Retrieved 2026-04-29.
  11. ↑ Tolo, Julia Johanne (2015-10-27). "The Messiness of Desire: An Interview with Suzanne Scanlon". Electric Literature. Retrieved 2026-04-29.
  12. ↑ Navaratnam, Subashini (2012-10-28). "The Bell Jar Descending: Suzanne Scanlon's 'Promising Young Women' » PopMatters". www.popmatters.com. Retrieved 2026-04-29.
  13. 1 2 Gould, Emily (2024-04-16). "A Memoir of Three Years in a Mental Hospital". The Cut. Retrieved 2024-07-31.
  14. ↑ Lane, Christopher. "Committed: An Interview With Suzanne Scanlon {". www.psychologytoday.com. Retrieved 2026-04-29.
  15. 1 2 Cardoza, Kerry (2024-04-17). "'Reading saved me'". Chicago Reader. Retrieved 2026-04-29.
  16. ↑ Rooney, Kathleen. "Suzanne Scanlon Reclaims the Power of Crazy Women Writers". Chicago Magazine. Retrieved 2024-07-31.
  17. ↑ "Without Care". BOMB Magazine. Retrieved 2026-04-29.
  18. ↑ Kleine, Andrea (2017). "I Long For Something Wild". PAJ: A Journal of Performance and Art. 39 (2). [Performing Arts Journal, Inc, The MIT Press]: 40–48. doi:10.1162/PAJJ_a_00361. ISSN 1520-281X. JSTOR 26386835.
  19. ↑ Powell, Katrina M. (2021). Performing Autobiography: Narrating a Life as Activism. Cham: Springer International Publishing. doi:10.1007/978-3-030-64598-4. ISBN 978-3-030-64597-7.