Susan Crawford

Susan Crawford grew up in Miami, Florida, where she spent her childhood adoring her older sister, reading mysteries in a hammock strung between two Banyan trees, and collecting lizards, baby skunks and other odd, exotic creatures.

She later moved to New York City and then to Boston before settling in Atlanta to raise three amazing daughters and to teach in various adult education settings. A member of The Atlanta Writers Club and The Village Writers, Crawford works for the Department of Technical and Adult Education and is a member of her local planning commission. She lives in Atlanta with her husband and a trio of rescue cats, where she enjoys reading books, writing books, rainy days, and spending time with the people she loves.

Her first novel is The Pocket Wife.

Recently I asked Crawford about what she was reading. Her reply:

I’m currently reading Lori Lansens’ The Wife’s Tale, and I picked it up because it sounded so Chaucer. I liked the premise – Mary’s husband leaves her on the eve of their twenty-fifth wedding anniversary, and she must step outside her comfort zone to find out why. Ironically, it is most likely Mary’s refusal to explore the world beyond her rigid and extremely limiting boundaries that has brought about her husband's departure – to think, he tells her in a letter. The main character is obese, but it could really be anything that limits her. It is Mary’s love for her husband – something she’s kept buried for years – that propels her to leave not only her comfort zone, but her country, in this odyssey, but it is Mary herself – an expertly-drawn character, charming, innocent, and humorous – that propelled me to read the book. The pace is leisurely and the details enable me to really understand Mary and to be invested in what happens to her.

I just finished Paula Hawkins’ The Girl on the Train, and I found it to be a compelling read. I hated putting it down, and I read it in a couple of sittings. I loved the concept of a woman obsessing on the marriage of a couple she has only seen from a train window. When the wife disappears, the woman on the train feels personally involved and impacted. Her attempts to clarify what happened to the missing wife are inhibited by her alcoholism and subsequent blackouts, which added to the tension and kept me turning pages well into the night.

Visit Susan Crawford's website.

--Marshal Zeringue