NOTE: As of late this afternoon, 4/11/19, Sooner Than Tomorrow is up on Amazon and available for ordering. I’m in tears. My heart and soul are in this book. Thank you, so much, for reading it.
Click here to link to my Amazon book page:
In a few days, Sooner Than Tomorrow will be available in paperback on Amazon. Dedicated to mothers. Perfect for Mother’s Day! Please leave a comment on Amazon on my book page. I’m counting on word of mouth to attract new readers. Thanks so much!
FROM THE BACK COVER:
I had no idea, as I was writing my diary (June 15, 2013 — June 15, 2014), that I was capturing the last year of my son’s life. Pat died, unexpectedly, on July 23, 2014, on a hospital psych ward. Suddenly, my diary morphed into a more poignant record than I’d anticipated and, after he died, I discovered Pat had been making regular posts on Facebook. I decided to add his comments to my own.
One day, you know it will be your turn. Something alters your projection. There’s a major shift and then events will be referenced as “before” or “after.” Your life as it was versus the way it is now. In Sooner Than Tomorrow, I learn — right along with the reader — what will happen next. We’re all on a journey. Thank you for going on this journey with me.
—Dede Ranahan
Dede Ranahan weaves everyday events into her poignant account of her son’s descent into psychosis. She takes readers, with her and her family, on a harrowing journey — there is no guidebook — that too many of us are forced to take. Written in diary form, with entries by both mother and son, Sooner Than Tomorrow quietly exposes our nation’s shameful failure to help those with serious mental illnesses. It chronicles a mother’s unending love for a child and a son’s struggles to be well. An important book. A loving tribute. A powerful story that tugs at the heart and leaves readers asking, “Why can’t we do better?”
—Pete Earley,
author of CRAZY: A Father’s Search
Through America’s Mental Health Madness
This book about psychiatric brain disease is poignant and painful, but, ultimately, a necessary read. In its well-constructed pages, you’ll find a mother’s diary of her wonderful son and his terrible illness. Every clinician needs a copy of this, every mental health worker, every doctor, and, certainly, every family. Sooner Than Tomorrow is as real as storytelling gets. There are no stories more honest than those of our children who live with mental illnesses. This book tells one such story beautifully.
—Laura Pogliano,
mother of Zac, Board Member, SARDAA
(Schizophrenia and Related Disorders Alliance of America)
Among the uncountable tragedies of the mental illness sub-nation, is its near-invisibility to its host society. So-called normal people live alongside neighbors—even friends—whose quiet pain, mourning, terror, and desperation would affront the nation’s conscience if it were better known. Dede Ranahan is among the heroic witnesses who are breaking that silence. Her memoir of the loss of her son — passionate, eloquent, revelatory, and unspeakably brave — brilliantly takes its place among the beacons of light and truth telling that point the way to the reclamation of our most helpless brothers and sisters, sons and daughters, mothers and fathers.
—Ron Powers,
Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, author of
No One CaresAbout Crazy People:
The Chaos and Heartbreak of Mental Health in America