The Book of Susan: A Novel

Melanie Hutsell

Jul 2022 · Paraclete Press · Narrated by Rachel McKendree

About this audiobook

Winner of the Award of Merit of the 2023 Christianity Today Book Awards — Fiction!“ Profound and compulsively readable.” — Silas House, author of SouthernmostNew from a fresh voice in literary fiction comes this riveting deep-dive into one woman's experience with bipolar disorder and God.Her mind has never failed her— until an ill-fated dinner party.

Meet Dr. Susan Huffman: wife to chancery court judge Samuel Ellison, mother to adorable Ian, and college professor on track for tenure. She' s a woman who has always lived by her mind, with a plan and a purpose. But then new-in-town Lorraine Davis accepts an invitation to Susan and Samuel' s home, and the mysterious visions begin. Is God warning Susan about this newcomer? And if so, how can she protect her circle of friends, her family, and her life as she knows it?

The Book of Susan is the spare and sympathetic recounting of a journey— from derailment, to diagnosis, to the discovery of a lifetime.

About the author

A native of east Tennessee, poet and novelist Melanie K. Hutsell has been learning to live with bipolar disorder for more than fifteen years. She holds a BA in English from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, an MA in English from Indiana University at Bloomington, and an MBA from East Tennessee State University. A lay member of the United Methodist Church, an avid reader, and music lover, she currently resides in Oak Ridge, Tennessee.