Tuesday, September 25, 2001

By Kim Cano - PR intern

WILMINGTON, NC – Dr. Janet Mason Ellerby’s Intimate Reading: The Contemporary Women’s Memoir depicts the many facets of struggling with life’s difficult and often painful decisions, as well as detailed analyses of more than a dozen contemporary memoirs by American women.

At the age of 16, Janet Ellerby was sent across the country to a Florence Crittendon home for unwed mothers, and was forced to give up her baby girl for adoption. The memoir narrates her long-held secret and analyzes the painful aftermath of this pivotal event in her life. In conjunction with the other memoirs, Ellerby discusses the debilitating consequences of secrets, such as shame, and the lasting effects of trauma. She goes on to examine other secrets that women feel compelled to keep such as sexual abuse, rape, sexual orientation, and mental illness.

Syracuse University Press describes the book as “an innovative look at the contemporary memoir. Intimate Reading blends autobiography and literary analysis to illuminate the intellectual, cultural, and emotional dynamics of life writing.”

Dr. Ellerby examines American society’s commitment to superficial appearances and the erosion of her emotional health because of it. Through telling her secret, she hopes to demonstrate “how honesty can guide us toward transformation, stability, and empowerment. Memoirs show us how to tell our truths,” she says. Dr. Ellerby’s truths have been published and by telling her secret she feels “emotionally honest and liberated. I have much more peace of mind, a calm acceptance of myself and my faults,” she says.

Her journey was a difficult and often overwhelming one, plaguing Dr. Ellerby with insomnia and depression. However, her colleagues, friends and her own yearning to heal encouraged her to write her story. Intimate Reading reveals many family secrets as well as her own personal story, which she was fearful about in the beginning. However, the response has been supportive. Along her path to self-healing she discovered her parents felt much the same pain. “It’s not something we’re going to discuss over the dinner table, but I am still invited to dinner!” said Dr. Ellerby.

After 35 years, Dr. Janet Ellerby was re-united with her daughter Merideth, with whom she shares an uncanny resemblance, “I was so nervous, I was afraid she wouldn’t like me; afraid she would be cold, suspicious, angry or that meeting me was for her just getting something over with, out of a sense of obligation.” She was wrong. Their reunion was heartwarming and emotionally gripping. “We talked and cried and couldn’t stop staring at each other,” she says.

They have since spent holidays together and are planning a big family reunion this Thanksgiving, the first time all of Dr. Ellerby’s children will be together. “It still feels miraculous to me and I am filled with wonder at the gift I have received. A precious part of our family that we had lost was found because I told my story.”

Dr. Janet Mason Ellerby is an associate professor and women’s studies coordinator in the Department of English at the University of North Carolina at Wilmington. UNCW has awarded Dr. Ellerby with the Distinguished Teaching Professorship, which recognizes faculty who make outstanding contributions to teaching.

Intimate Reading cloth bound is $49.95 and paperback is $19.95 by Syracuse University Press in New York. It is available in Wilmington at Barnes and Noble, Books a Million and Bristol Books.