The talented author and poet, Nigel Byng honored me with a review of my memoir, Surviving Sue last week and I think I’ll be in awe of him for the rest of my life.
Yes…I know that smacks of hyperbole but it’s not.
It’s precisely how I felt, how I’ll continue to feel, thanks to Nigel’s deeply personal review.
The drive to write and peel back the intense details about life with my mom, Sue, was motivated by a quote from Brené Brown. A quote Nigel recognized straight away, noticing it on page 1:
“One day you will tell your story of how you overcame what you went through, and it will be someone else’s survival guide.”
– Brené Brown
Thank you so much, Nigel. You understood. I’m not surprised, especially as I savor your latest, The Drifter, The Prodigal, The Last Son.
Reading it is soul work…
Here’s what I mean. A invitational snippet from the back cover, expertly describing the hoped-for reader experience:
Within these pages, you will encounter a boy on a quest. The peripatetic, searching for a home; the stoic chased relentlessly by God, and the rebel confronted by destiny. Somewhere between childhood and a midlife crisis, a reluctant poet found his voice, set aside childish pursuits, and sat with divinity on a cold windswept beach in North Wales.
You may join him on this quest, and much like life, it promises to be an adventure. Or, you may sit beside him in quiet contemplation, and chart the familiarity of souls all headed to the same destination. The choice is yours.
Powerful and evocative words. I remember the insecurities and uncertainty I experienced while writing Surviving Sue. When I doubted my ability to continue, I leaned into the reminder that storytelling matters, even when, especially when, it’s personal and painful.
“We’re all just walking each other home.”
– Ram Dass
Survivors are everywhere and the warriors I’ve met on the recovery road bear testament to the power of disclosure, finding the courage to overcome vulnerability. Nigel understands; it resonates in his magnificent work.
Disappointment and pain may unify us, but that same shaky, common ground can be a gateway for growth. I’ve seen the dividends in hard-won insight, bonds created. Friendships formed as a result of writing Surviving Sue.
I considered sharing an excerpt or two from Nigel’s review but found it impossible to choose portions and interrupt the flow. Read on…you’ll understand why.
Book Review – Surviving Sue, by Dr. Vicki Atkinson
I sat on this book for a while. When I finally got around to reading Surviving Sue, I was moved by Dr. Vicki Atkinson’s emotional resilience and her willingness to be vulnerable with her readers.
Dr. Vicki has delivered a compelling and deeply personal debut Memoir. It goes far beyond the standard dysfunctional-family narrative, offering instead a deeply immersive emotional experience.
The story chronicles Dr. Vicki’s complex relationship with her mother, Sue, while simultaneously providing what feels like a masterclass in boundary setting and intergenerational healing. With her extensive clinical background as a licensed professional counselor and life coach, Dr. Vicki navigates the tumultuous family experiences that shaped her life. She explores alcoholism, mental health crises, and developmental disabilities, creating a story that felt vastly different from the usual dark mother-daughter dynamics that I have encountered in other memoirs.
I expected the book to focus on the compounding weight of trauma, but Dr. Vicki consciously steered the conversation in a different direction. I saw this as her leaving her unique imprint on the story, not the pain. She reframed her personal history into something that resembles a collective survival guide.
Surviving Sue benefits immensely from Dr. Vicki’s perspective as a professional counselor. If she had authored this book twenty years ago, I suspect it would have read very differently. But Vicki models healthy boundaries and practical problem-solving in real time. She did not simply recount the chaos of adolescence; she actively demonstrated how she learned to maintain presence, cultivate self-preservation and, most endearingly, extend grace without sacrificing her own well-being.
In brilliant framing, Dr. Vicki begins Part One of her book with a quote attributed to Brené Brown: “One day you will tell your story of how you overcame what you went through, and it will be someone else’s survival guide.” The quote anchors the work beautifully and, to me, speaks to the emotional maturity that resonates throughout the book.
There is much I wanted to say about this memoir, but when I write a review, I usually try to express what the experience meant to me without giving away too much.
I have had friends and family members with mental health issues; I have lived with a father who struggled to put down his bottle of rum, and I know all too well the chaos that addiction can leave in its wake on a bad day. When I write about such characters in my stories, I often try to show the duality of my antagonists. That is something I believe Dr. Vicki did exceptionally well. Rather than painting her mama as a flat villain, Dr. Vicki crafts a deeply complex portrait of a woman fueled by immense contradictions. Sue is a charming, tireless advocate who raises money and pioneers programs for developmentally disabled children, including her daughter, Lisa.
Yet behind closed doors, Sue hides cans of Miller Lite and subjects her family to her unpredictable torrents. Dr. Vicki does not excuse or forgive the abuse; instead, she gently maps out how Sue’s destructive choices may have been attempts to compensate for deep-seated insecurities. That made me think about my old man, who would have me hide his rum and cigarettes from Ma. I found myself wondering, in my notes, what demons my dad wrestled with till his dying day.
My dad’s legacy was something I considered throughout the book, much in the same way Dr. Vicki captured the ripple effects of broader historical realities on ordinary families. This approach, of observing the micro-history of one family while acknowledging the larger forces surrounding the society, elevated Surviving Sue above what I expected from a family memoir.
One of the things I admired most about this book is Dr. Vicki’s prose. It is direct, vulnerable, and written with an educator’s clarity. There was a natural transition between her raw memories and her therapeutic insight. At times, it felt like I was listening to a very gifted public speaker rather than simply reading a memoir. She has a keen eye for the subtleties of female intuition and meticulously dissected the patterns of generational dysfunction. More importantly, she came across as being undaunted by the prospect of telling the truth about her past. That honesty is part of what made this book so refreshing to me.
My conclusion was that Surviving Sue was not simply a story about surviving a difficult mother. It is a story about what we do with the histories we inherit, the boundaries we need to learn to establish, and the grace we can extend without abandoning who we are in the process. Dr. Vicki Atkinson took her deeply personal history and transformed it into something that invites readers to examine their own family legacies.
Nigel…thank you! 💝
Renewed Purpose
Over the past several weeks I’ve been in deep training mode, completing the required coursework to maintain my counselor credentials. I’ll be honest. In the thirty years I’ve held a mental health license I haven’t always relished the mandatory professional development.
But this time around, something’s shifted for me. I feel the importance, more than ever, of being a helper and it’s bolstering my desire to keep working, writing and sharing what I know. What I’ve learned.
Every time I open myself up wholeheartedly, pushing to find bravery, good things happen. Just like the unexpected praise from Nigel which gives my work renewed purpose.
Thank you for being here, friends.
Vicki 💝
If you’re not following Nigel, please do so and check out his wonderful books on his Author’s Page.
Nigel’s post about Surviving Sue: Book Review – Surviving Sue, by Dr. Vicki Atkinson
Hi – I’m Victoria, Vicki, Dr. Vicki. I hold a doctorate in Adult Education and I’m a Licensed Professional Counselor (LPC), and author of Surviving Sue and Slivers.
Check out this link to learn more about my book Surviving Sue – all about resilience and love. Check out this link to order Slivers…a ghost story with surprising twists. Click here for the interview with my publisher, Rick Kaempfer from Eckhartz Press.
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