Life

Susanna Kaysen was born and raised in Cambridge, Massachusetts

Cambridge, Massachusetts

Cambridge is a city in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States, in the Greater Boston area. It was named in honor of the University of Cambridge in England, an important center of the Puritan theology embraced by the town's founders. Cambridge is home to two of the world's most prominent...

. She is the daughter of economist Carl Kaysen

Carl Kaysen

Carl Kaysen was an economist and professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and co-chair of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences' Committee on International Security Studies. He is the father of Girl, Interrupted author Susanna Kaysen. He was married for 50 years to Annette Neutra...

, a professor at MIT

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology is a private research university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts. MIT has five schools and one college, containing a total of 32 academic departments, with a strong emphasis on scientific and technological education and research.Founded in 1861 in...

 and former advisor to President John F. Kennedy

John F. Kennedy

John Fitzgerald "Jack" Kennedy , often referred to by his initials JFK, was the 35th President of the United States, serving from 1961 until his assassination in 1963....

, and his wife Annette Neutra Kaysen. Kaysen has one sister and is divorced. She lived for a time in the Faroe Islands

Faroe Islands

The Faroe Islands are an island group situated between the Norwegian Sea and the North Atlantic Ocean, approximately halfway between Scotland and Iceland. The Faroe Islands are a self-governing territory within the Kingdom of Denmark, along with Denmark proper and Greenland...

, upon which experience her novel Far Afield is based.

Kaysen attended high school at the Commonwealth School

Commonwealth School

Commonwealth School is an independent high school of about 155 students and 35 faculty members located at 151 Commonwealth Avenue in the Back Bay neighborhood of Boston, Massachusetts, United States.-History:...

 in Boston, and the Cambridge School

The Cambridge School of Weston

The Cambridge School of Weston, also known as CSW, is a private, coeducational high school in Weston, Massachusetts. Currently the school has approximately 330 students, 25% of whom are boarding. The Head of School is Jane Moulding...

 before being sent to McLean Hospital

McLean Hospital

McLean Hospital is a psychiatric hospital in Belmont, Massachusetts.It is noted for its clinical staff expertise and ground-breaking neuroscience research...

 in 1967 to undergo psychiatric treatment

Psychotherapy

Psychotherapy is a general term referring to any form of therapeutic interaction or treatment contracted between a trained professional and a client or patient; family, couple or group...

 for depression

Clinical depression

Major depressive disorder is a mental disorder characterized by an all-encompassing low mood accompanied by low self-esteem, and by loss of interest or pleasure in normally enjoyable activities...

. It was there she was diagnosed with borderline personality disorder

Borderline personality disorder

Borderline personality disorder is a personality disorder described as a prolonged disturbance of personality function in a person , characterized by depth and variability of moods.The disorder typically involves unusual levels of instability in mood; black and white thinking, or splitting; the...

. She was released after eighteen months. She later drew on this experience for her 1993 memoir Girl, Interrupted

Girl, Interrupted

Girl, Interrupted is a best-selling 1993 memoir by American author Susanna Kaysen, relating her experiences as a young woman in a psychiatric hospital in the 1960s after being diagnosed with borderline personality disorder...

, which was adapted into a film

Girl, Interrupted (film)

Girl, Interrupted is a 1999 drama film about a teenager's 18-month stay at a mental institution, starring Winona Ryder, Brittany Murphy, Angelina Jolie, Whoopi Goldberg and Vanessa Redgrave, with Jolie winning an Academy Award for her performance....

 in 1999, in which she was portrayed by Winona Ryder

Winona Ryder

Winona Ryder is an American actress. She made her film debut in the 1986 film Lucas. Ryder's first significant role came in Tim Burton's Beetlejuice as a goth teenager, which won her critical and commercial recognition...

.

External links

• Austin Chronicle interview with Kaysen, via the Wayback Machine
• Susanna Kaysen, with photo of the author and synopses of her books, on the site of her publisher, Alfred A. Knopf
  Alfred A. Knopf
  Alfred A. Knopf, Inc. is a New York publishing house, founded by Alfred A. Knopf, Sr. in 1915. It was acquired by Random House in 1960 and is now part of the Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group at Random House. The publishing house is known for its borzoi trademark , which was designed by co-founder...