In Pursuit of Radio Mom: Searching for the Mother I Never Had

by Terry Crylen

Overview

In Pursuit of Radio Mom brings the reader tight to Terry Crylen’s side as it traces her path from frequent and debilitating anxiety, loneliness, and shame—and a dysfunctional marriage that mirrors the dynamics of her relationship with her mother—to the discovery of her authentic self and the happiness and fulfillment such a transformation brings. Radio Mom also illuminates the ways in which one generation impacts the next—both wittingly and unwittingly—when later, while pressing along the difficult route of raising her own daughter, the author is challenged to confront, yet again, the legacy of her past. 

A book that also makes transparent the process of psychotherapy, In Pursuit of Radio Mom’s message is this: the excavation of pain clears space within the mind and heart—affording the growth of new insight, overturning fear, and making acceptance and forgiveness possible.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781647425753
Publisher:	She Writes Press
Publication date:	10/24/2023
Pages:	296
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.50(h) x 0.90(d)

About the Author

Terry Crylen’s thirty-five years in the mental health field, thirty of them in private practice as a PhD Licensed Clinical Psychologist, served to enrich her understanding and appreciation for the emotional power of the mother-daughter relationship. A graduate of Northwestern University, her career in mental health focused largely on working with adolescent girls and adult women presenting with clinical depression, anxiety, and complex mood disorders. A lifelong Chicagoan, she is committed to supporting community efforts aimed at creating opportunities for the city’s economically disadvantaged youth and is an ardent supporter of the arts. Along with her husband, Phil, Terry is also a “frequent flyer,” devoted to maintaining strong ties with family—most of whom are scattered across the US. When not on the road or writing, she can be found hanging out with four-legged friends or with her nose in a good book.

Editorial Reviews

08/07/2023

Crylen’s debut memoir explores the churning emotions and challenges of mother-daughter relationships generation after generation. Nearly five-year-old Terry, living on Chicago’s south side in 1958, fantasizes about her ideal mother as she crouches behind their second-hand Zenith radio. The sixth of eight children, Terry seeks attention amid the three-ring circus of their small box home, where she says she can never “grab hold of the ringmaster—my mom.” Her mother, Florence Crylen, who escaped her own mother’s prison for another when she married, was unprepared for the eight children and low paying jobs she hated as she tries to make ends meet for her family. Her relentless dialogue of regret and missed opportunity leaves her exhausted, depressed, and overwhelmed without any energy for life.

Crylen’s story stands as a reminder that listening, therapy, and forgiveness are crucial, but the day-to-day application challenges the best of us. That’s especially clear as Terry acts as helper to “mother her mother.” Florence’s silence and absence trigger the darkest times, and it sparks Terry to begin Operation Help Mom, her attempt to care for her siblings and lessen her mother’s despair. Crylen is refreshingly frank about what this takes. Without a confidante or role model, Terry keeps secrets and makes poor choices as she struggles through her teenage years and schooling. Her anxiety, fear, and guilt make matters worse as she marries an alcoholic, John, a man twice her age.

But the memoir never shies from hope. As she completes her psychology doctorate and enters therapy, Terry breaks through some of the trauma inflicted by her mother’s words yet is still secretive and haunted by guilt. Still, when she has her own daughter, Grace, the cycle of mother to daughter transitions to a whole new generation of burying emotions, seeking attention, and recycling the trauma—complex cycles books like this help to illuminate. Perfect mothering is impossible, and Crylen’s brave narrative shares intimate details of her life to help others. Perhaps in the next generation, the fathers’ roles will be as closely scrutinized.

Takeaway: Affecting memoir of a daughter mothering her mother—and breaking cycles.

Comparable Titles: Michelle Zauner’s Crying in the H Mart, Kelly McDaniel’s Mother Hunger.

Production grades Cover: A Design and typography: A Illustrations: N/A Editing: A Marketing copy: A

BookLife Reviews

Crylen provides a reasoned, thought-provoking series of changing viewpoints about her mother from childhood to adulthood, cementing the early influences and absences that formulated her life and psyche . . . Libraries and readers seeking memoirs that capture the process of growth and understanding between mothers and daughters will find In Pursuit of Radio Mom an especially astute, potent consideration of family ideals and realities that is recommended for a much wider audience than the usual memoir or psychological inspection.”
—Midwest Book Review

“The prose is sharp and filtered through considerations of how Crylen’s unresolved pain trickled into her adulthood.”
—Foreword Clarion

“A candid memoir that will resonate with anyone navigating the relationship between mother and daughter”
—Kirkus Reviews

“As Terry’s colleague of twenty-five years, I have witnessed her dedication to a career investigating the lives of others. Her ability to interweave clinical expertise with personal experience is a rare gift. This is a riveting story of the transformative power of truth and love, shared with astounding empathy.”
—Roxanne I. Levin, PhD

“Many memoirs have been written about family ties, dysfunction, and impact. Few hold the resolute blend of professional and personal assessment that rise above and beyond the moment to consider the connections and broken perceptions mothers and daughters too often struggle with.”
—D. Donovan, Senior Reviewer, Midwest Book Review

“A strong voice from a clinical psychologist who writes with surprising candor and no psychobabble. Insightful; a tender take on the emotional chambers of the heart.”
—Linda Gray Sexton, best-selling author of Searching For Mercy Street: My Journey Back to My Mother, Anne Sexton

“Affecting memoir of a daughter mothering her mother—and breaking cycles.”
—Publishers Weekly, Booklife

From the Publisher