I loved connecting with guest Joanna Rakoff on today's Every Soul Has a Story episode. Joanna is the author of the international bestselling memoir My Salinger Year and the bestselling novel A Fortunate Age, winner of the Goldberg Prize for Fiction and the Elle Readers’ Prize. Rakoff’s books have been translated into twenty languages, and the film adaptation of My Salinger Year opened in theaters worldwide in 2021 and is now streaming. She has been the recipient of fellowships and residencies from MacDowell, Sewanee, Authors’ Guild, PEN, Ragdale Foundation, Art, and Saltonstall; and has taught at Columbia University, Brooklyn College, and Aspen Words. Her writing has appeared in The New York Times, The Guardian, O: The Oprah Magazine, Vogue, Elle, Porter, and elsewhere, and her new memoir, The Fifth Passenger, is forthcoming from Little, Brown in 2024.

Joanna discusses her upcoming project, a memoir about her own family, and the revelation of a shocking, life-altering family secret. Listen to our conversation to hear about her background, including her experiences with being bullied as a child, family dynamics, motherhood, the concept of "replacement children," and much more.

Thank you, Joanna, for sharing your evocative, inspiring story!

Quotes:

"I as a kid definitely did not envision this as my future. Not at all. I mean it didn’t even occur to me.”

“We existed kind of in radical opposition to each other.”

“I think maybe replacement children may be prone to having some survivor’s guilt.”