The Silkworm, The Magician, and The Sister Tree: A Discussion with Suzy McNamara and Katie Seigentha

The Book Stall welcomes Suzy McNamara to the store for a poignant discussion of her new memoir, The Silkworm, The Magician, and The Sister Tree: A Tale of Love and Loss, in-conversation with Katie Seigenthaler. This memoir of caregiving, love, and finding your way through devastating loss is a story of survival of the loss of a husband and sister. This is also a love story between two kindred spirits who found each other despite vastly different backgrounds and two sisters who forged a bond amongst the chaos of their childhood and relied on that bond throughout lives steeped in tragedy and trauma.

Suzy McNamara spent five years as a caregiver for her husband, who lived with Early-onset Alzheimer’s. When she lost him and her sister within the same year, she turned to writing as the only language honest enough for what she’d survived. She writes for those navigating loss and the often-invisible weight of caring for someone they love with the steady conviction that grief, however isolating, does not have to be the end of the story.

Katie Seigenthaler is the co-editor of The Kingdom of the Poor: My Journey Home, the best-selling posthumous memoir of homeless activist Charles Strobel; and the co-author with Dr. Alex Jahangir of Hot Spot: A Doctor's Diary from the Pandemic, which chronicles his harrowing tenure as head of Nashville's COVID Task Force. Both were published by Vanderbilt University Press in 2024 and 2022, respectively. Katie is a former reporter, editor and columnist with The Chicago Tribune.