Synopsis

In 1957, when Amy Turner was four years old, her father had to be talked down from a hotel ledge by a priest. The story of his attempted suicide received nationwide press coverage, and he spent months in a psychiatric facility before returning home. From then on, Amy constantly worried about him for reasons she didn’t yet fully understand, triggering a pattern of hypervigilance that would plague her into adulthood.

In 2010, fifty-five years after her father’s attempted suicide, Amy—now a wife, mother, and lawyer-turned-schoolteacher—is convinced she’s dealt with all the psychological reverberations of her childhood. Then she steps into a crosswalk and is mowed down by a pickup truck—an accident that nearly kills her, and that ultimately propels her on a remarkable emotional journey. With the help of Chinese Medicine, Somatic Experiencing, and serendipities that might be attributed to grace, Amy first unravels the trauma of her own brush with death and then, unexpectedly, heals the childhood trauma buried far deeper.

Poignant and intimate, On the Ledge is Amy’s insightful and surprisingly humorous chronicle of coming to terms with herself and her parents as the distinct, vulnerable individuals they are. Perhaps more meaningfully, it offers proof that no matter how far along you are in life, it’s never too late to find yourself.

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Praise

“. . . an intriguing memoir . . . that many readers will find relatable. . . . A frank and engaging portrait of one family’s struggles with mental illness.”—Kirkus Reviews

“In lyrical and vivid prose, Amy Turner reckons with her family secrets and how they dug their roots deep into her psyche. With trauma as the inciting force, Turner courageously comes to terms with her past and present, showing us how choosing to lean into the scars can reveal paths forward. On the Ledge is a compelling read, told with grace, vulnerability, and depth.”—Rachel Michelberg, author of Crash: How I Became a Reluctant Caregiver

“This remarkable story of a woman’s journey toward healing after a random, shocking accident takes us back in time into the home of an unusual family and the seminal event that shaped them all. In peeling back layers of trauma and revisiting key moments from her past, Turner comes to a new understanding of what it means to be a daughter, a mother, a woman, and a seeker of truth. This is a riveting story of courage and redemption. And dare I say that parts of it are very, very funny?”—Hope Edelman, #1 New York Times best-selling author of Motherless Daughters and The AfterGrief

“On the Ledge is an extraordinary memoir of the way trauma harms both body and soul. Amy Turner’s near-miss with death at the age of fifty-seven propels her on a journey back through family history, leading to a new understanding of how her father’s attempted suicide and her mother’s determination to ‘move on’ has shaped—and limited—her since the age of four. Inspirational and beautifully told.”—Susan Scarf Merrell, author of Shirley: A Novel, now a major motion picture

“Absorbing, direct, humorous, horrific, On the Ledge explores the edge of madness as an artful memoir that also addresses two growing contemporary concerns: suicide and addiction. Timely, significant, well written, this is a courageous and engaging account, neither didactic nor sentimental, that belongs on school shelves as well as in the home.”
—Joan Baum, host of NPR’s Baum on Books

Guest Post

Thank You Notes

By Amy Turner

My father was a firm believer in writing thank you notes and always did so promptly in response to even the smallest gestures of kindness. My husband and I used to joke that my father’s note thanking us for his weekend visit to our home would probably arrive in the mail before he left.

I didn’t follow my father’s example as assiduously as I should’ve, but writing a thank you note after a memorial for my brother led me to write my memoir. How I wish my father were still with us so that I could thank him.

My brother died unexpectedly and suddenly in late September 2010. After struggling with alcoholism ever since his mid-twenties, Harold had been sober for the last three years—the longest period of sobriety he’d achieved since he’d started drinking thirty years earlier. I would’ve been sad but not surprised if he’d died at any other time in the previous thirty years. But in late September 2010, I was shocked.

My brother’s death occurred two months after another shockingly random event in my life. I’d been crossing the street at a pedestrian crosswalk when I was mowed down by a pickup truck. Fortunately, I didn’t suffer any broken bones or internal injuries, but my concussion, shoulder injury, and other physical issues required ongoing treatment. Lucky for me, I ended up in the care of an acupuncturist who was also training in Somatic Experiencing and other body-oriented trauma-release therapies.

After the accident, my therapist and acupuncturist urged me to write about the accident, but, petulant as a toddler, I resisted for reasons even I didn’t understand.

Ten months after my brother Harold’s death (and a year after the accident), we held a memorial service for him, where our high school English teacher appeared out of the blue. I hadn’t seen her in over 40 years and had no idea how she’d learned of the service. Her beautiful tribute to my brother as a teenager and recitation of Wordsworth’s “Splendour in the Grass” moved us all.

I began my thank you note to our teacher with my brother’s memorial and my feelings of loss. He had shown promise as a teenager and Harvard College student, but his addiction, our family’s legacy, prevented him from utilizing his many personal gifts. As I wrote about my brother, I also described my accident. It was appropriate to do so because my acupuncturist was also strongly connected to this teacher in a series of serendipities too involved to recount.

As I wrote, a channel within me suddenly cleared and out poured connections, memories, and reflections to which I’d never before had access. Like my father, I’d been a blocked writer and given up my dream of writing in my twenties. But my father had soldiered on.

As my writing was soon beyond the bounds of a thank you note, I sent off my message to her and kept writing. I had no idea that ten years later, this initial breakthrough would result in my memoir, On the Ledge.

I’m sure my initial outpouring was prompted by the work I’d done in trauma-release therapy. It allowed space and distance to grow within me, an area of emotional safety from which I could suddenly express myself. But now that the book is published and out in this world, I think I also understand why over the course of the next ten years I’d felt such an urgency—an imperative– to write what became On the Ledge

I believe that I couldn’t leave these two random events—my brother’s death and the accident—to remain outliers in my experience. I was compelled subconsciously to integrate them into the larger context of my life. As I wrote, my story became that of confronting one’s vulnerability—staring into the windshield of an oncoming truck and facing my brother’s sudden, unexpected loss.

In trying to process these two events, I was brought back to the seminal event in my family’s life: When I was four and a half, my father climbed out onto the ledge of his hotel window and threatened to jump. He was talked down after twenty minutes by a passing priest and then hospitalized for a year. For me, his sudden disappearance and, upon his return, my worries about his mental state created a fear of vulnerability that I’d spend a lifetime trying to suppress…

Until, finally, I began to write and in the process find the freedom I’d so long sought.

Guest Review by Nora

“My test, in the end, was half-hearted. Perhaps even then I sensed the truth: They weren’t capable of saving me. They were too busy trying to save themselves.” – “On the Ledge,’ by Amy Turner.

A look at the way that the cycle of addiction and depression can affect multiple generations, ‘On the Ledge,’ by Amy Turner is a memoir with an emotional kick. Amy was only four years old when her father’s suicide attempt put him into a psychiatric hospital. Forced to come to terms with the fact that her father was acting differently for reasons that she couldn’t yet understand, Amy spent the rest of her childhood trying her best not to upset him.

Between her emotionally fragile father and a mother whose rigorous control of the household was her way of staving off her latent alcoholism, Amy was raised in an environment that provided trauma that she would spend many decades unpacking.

It wasn’t until 55 years later, however, that Amy would get the best chance of understanding how her parents thought. In 2010, Amy was crossing a crosswalk after picking up her dry cleaning when she was hit by a pickup truck. For a while afterward, Amy lay on the pavement, unable to move, worried that she was going to suffocate on the plastic drycleaning bag that had ended up over her face.

After being taken to the hospital and cleared to go home, Amy was surprised to find that the psychological trauma from the accident seemed to be affecting her more so than the physical trauma. This memoir is a thesis on emotional trauma and healing one’s inner child.

Amy Turner writes with both talent and experience that I think a lot of readers could benefit from. For anyone who has been through trauma in their lives, this book is for you. A courageous woman with her gripping true story. I could not put it down!

About the Author

Amy Turner was born in Bronxville, New York, and is a graduate of Boston University, with a degree in political science, and of New York Law School, with a Juris Doctor Degree. After practicing law (rather unhappily) for twenty-two years, she finally found the courage to change careers at forty-eight and become a (very happy) seventh grade social studies teacher.

A long-time meditator and avid reader who loves to swim and bike, Amy lives in East Hampton, New York, with her husband, Ed, to whom she’s been married for forty years. They have two sons. On the Ledge is Amy’s first book.

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Giveaway

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This giveaway ends on October 5, 2022 midnight, pacific time.

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