Inside the Mind of Judy Sandler: The Provocative Truths Behind ‘What Kind of Mother’
In Judy Sandler’s debut memoir, What Kind of Mother: A Reckoning (West Virginia University Press; Sept. 2026), the author crafts a compelling narrative of how her son’s adolescent substance-use disorder and later severe mental illness diagnosis affect her family, and especially her relationship with her son. The book chronicles Sandler’s painful denial and then awakening to mental illness in her family, and her eventual acceptance that she cannot save her son—only he can save himself.
But this is not just a story about how parents must learn that their adult children can only save themselves, and how parents need to let go of the illusion of our control in their lives; it is also a remarkably intimate and candid example of the expansive benefits for the author writing, and sharing, her own story of self-discovery and change.
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