Jeannie was named after her father's dead daughter, Jeanne, from a previous marriage and The Glass Eye is the story of how Jeannie, in turn, copes with the grief of her own father’s death. Jamie Thomas, Women & Children First (Chicago, IL)

The layers found in this memoir are as plentiful as the layers found in the human eye ultimately, it is as deeply layered as the human experience itself.” Vanasco explores her family’s history: the entirely separate family her father had before she was born, the late-in-life marriage that led to Jeannie’s birth, and her own destructive behavior as she falls in and out of a mental illness, which informs the truly fascinating structure of the book.

Jeannie Vanasco promised her father before his death that she would write a book for him, never knowing the psychological and mental toll the process would ultimately take on her. A brilliant exploration of the human psyche, The Glass Eye deepens our definitions of love, sanity, grief, and recovery.“An absolutely beautiful exploration of family, grief, memory, and madness, The Glass Eye is outstanding. Jeannie Vanasco pulls us into her unraveling with such intimacy that her insanity becomes palpable, even logical. It becomes a puzzle Jeannie feels she must solve to better understand herself and her father. Obsession turns to investigation as Jeannie plumbs her childhood awareness of her dead half sibling and hunts for clues into the mysterious circumstances of her death.

The Glass Eye is Jeannie's struggle to honor her father, her larger-than-life hero but also the man who named her after his daughter from a previous marriage, a daughter who died.Īfter his funeral, Jeannie spends the next decade in escalating mania, in and out of hospitals-increasingly obsessed with the other Jeanne. The night before her father dies, eighteen-year-old Jeannie Vanasco promises she will write a book for him. As the pages fly by, we’re right by Vanasco, breathlessly experiencing her grief, mania, revelations, and-ultimately - her relief.' -Entertainment WeeklyĪ Poets & Writers' Best Nonfiction Debut of 2017Ī Barnes & Noble Discover Great Writers Pickįor fans of Maggie Nelson and Meghan O’Rourke, Jeannie Vanasco emerges as a definitive new voice in this stunning portrait of a daughter's love for her father and her near-unraveling after his death.

The glass eye a memoir