City of One

City of One is a poignant and beautifully written memoir of childhood loss and its enduring meaning. Francine Cournos was three years old when her father died, and by the time she was eleven, her mother was dead of breast cancer. “I had been hurled over a cliff,” she writes. “The irreversibility of what had happened crashed down on me; a nauseating wave of fear and a flood of tears followed. I didn’t know who I was without my mother. What would fill the vast space left by the disappearance of this all-consuming relationship? How would I spend my time? What would I become?” In answering these questions, Dr. Cournos offers a sharply perceptive portrait of an injured child’s inner life, and the moving-even exhilarating-story of the ways in which, after much struggle and with considerable help from others, that injured child living in a foster home grew to become a happy and successful adult. At once illuminating and heart stopping, City of One is an inspiring account of triumph over childhood adversity. “Eloquent and moving.”-New York Times Book Review “Inspiring, insightful, and thoroughly engaging, offering hope and awareness to all who have experienced pivotal losses.”-Kirkus Reviews “City of One is extraordinarily moving. It is handled with a remarkable honesty and sensitivity. This is redemptive work because it leaves us with a sense of admiration for the courage of the human spirit.”-Jonathan Kozol, Author of Amazing Grace “From tragic to inspirational, City of One is an impressive lesson in one woman’s ability to endure.”

Author Biography

Francine Cournos, M.D., is a professor of clinical psychiatry at Columbia University and Deputy Director of New York State Psychiatric Institute where she teaches and conducts research. She has published extensively in the scientific literature. She lives in New York City.