In Conversation With Susan Thornton

What heirloom could be more special than a family history or even your own biography? Denis Ledoux in his book, ‘Turning Memories into Memoirs’ writes, 'A life story is a gift one generation bestows upon another, a legacy people have been giving from the beginning of time'. How many of us have often wished to capture all the family memories and document them for future generations. The daunting task, of course, is getting your memoir or family history writing project off the ground. Where do you begin? What's the best way to do research? How do you develop an engaging writing style? Most importantly where is the time to do it ? It is more work than you bargained far.

Not so for Susan Thornton who has not only written her own memoir but has also ghost written for an Indian family in Connecticut. To her, “writing and editing is a joy in life’. A part time editor at Binghamton University, she has passionately pursued this interest. She is the author of the memoir, On Broken Glass: Loving and Losing John Gardner “ which tells her own poignant story with whom the novelist John Gardner,( Grendel, Nickel Mountain, The Sunlight Dialogues, and the award-winning October Light) was to have married in September 1982 but was fatally wounded in a motorcycle accident. ‘On Broken Glass’ is the story of her exhilarating and sometimes devastating relationship with the author.

A year ago, Thornton ghost wrote a family autobiography for an Indian family in Connecticut who were originally from Mumbai. Shona Ramaya, a long time friend referred her to this family. She spent several weekends with the family members and says humorously that ‘soon the macaroni and cheese was replaced with delicious Indian food’ after her love for the cuisine was known. She put together their life story , tracing four generations, and telling the story of both sides of the family (husband's parents, wife's parents) and how the husband and later his wife came to settle in the US and raise their family here.

The memoir which mesh throughout, use the events of the early period of India’s freedom struggle, the days during partition, of which the grandparents were very active, to illustrate the forces that influenced their life. It included vivid descriptions of the social reformist movement and incidents like the Salt March. Susan began by charting a genealogy with timelines of each generation. From there she moved on from these stories to anecdotes about the family. She started with the childhood of the husband's parents and brought the story up to date in the present time.

She interwove the story with details of how the different generations celebrated holidays and included memorable family stories. She constructed this narrative by visiting with the family to conduct interviews, and through emails with members of the extended family. “In this way”, She says, “ I created a unique document of priceless family memories that would otherwise have been lost”

Currently Susan is a copy editor of the Review, a Journal of the Fernand Braudel Center that engages in the analysis of large-scale social change and focuses on economic trends. For some time she also had a free lance business as an editor, where she helped academics and other authors with books or articles. Susan also works as a coach, and can help a writer with a project at any stage: beginning, middle, or end. Her varied experience in writing gives her an edge. She elaborates” in my experience as both an academic and a technical writer, I am very versatile, and can work with any writing style”.

Susan now divides her time writing and offering her editorial services freelance. As she says, “I have helped other people to write stories. From the beginning of being the author to final edit. I work independently so I can be flexible to my client’s needs”. With her expertise, she offers a unique service to people who want to have a family keepsake but cannot handle it themselves.

In my conversation with her, what most comes across is that Susan Thornton really loves the work that she does. She is fascinated with India and would love to work with anyone interested in this kind of endeavor.