We wrap up this year’s Mother’s Day Author Blog series with Casey Sherman, whose latest book, THE KILLER AND FRANK LLOYD WRIGHT, releases on May 26th. Here, he delves beyond the myth of Frank Lloyd Wright's genius to reveal a man of relentless ambition, consuming passion and devastating loss. Throughout his career, Casey has shared the stories of many inspirational people. But his personal hero has been and always will be his mother, Diane Sullivan Dodd, whose love, support and guidance literally saved his life.
My mother would have turned 80 this May. We always celebrated her birthday on or close to Mother’s Day.
During my career, I've had the great fortune of writing about and sharing the stories of inspirational people. Among them are Coast Guardsman Bernie Webber, who captained the small lifeboat in a heroic rescue depicted in my book, THE FINEST HOURS, which was adapted as a Disney film; spectators who rushed into the smoke and fire at the Boston Marathon to save lives in my book, BOSTON STRONG, which became the movie Patriots Day; Pete Frates, the ALS survivor who took a virtual death sentence and used it as a rallying cry to save the world in my book, THE ICE BUCKET CHALLENGE; and Beatles legend John Lennon in the book I co-authored with James Patterson, THE LAST DAYS OF JOHN LENNON.
But my personal hero is and always will be my mum, Diane Sullivan Dodd, who protected me, supported me and even saved my life.
I lost my dad when he was 43 years old. I was in high school at the time, completely lost and headed down a dark path. My mother had experienced tremendous loss in her life and guided me through that painful time with a firm hand on my shoulder and nurturing advice.
Her sister, Mary Sullivan, was murdered by the so-called Boston Strangler in 1964. Mary was the youngest and final victim in that notorious murder case. She was frozen in time at 19 years old, but her younger sister, Diane (who was 17 at the time), had to carry on.
Despite this tragedy, my mother never saw herself as a victim. She shielded my brother and me from hardship, opened her own hairdressing shop on Cape Cod, and greeted each day with hope and a smile.
After my father’s sudden death, I became angry and rudderless. A month after his funeral, I got arrested for drunk driving. I was 17 years old.
Instead of bailing me out, my mum left me in a jail cell for hours where I experienced all the stages of grief seemingly at once: shock, sadness, outrage and, finally, acceptance.
When she picked me up from the police station, I was sober and truly focused for the first time in years.
"Mum, I need to leave Cape Cod," I said. "Everything here reminds me of dad, and I fear that I won’t survive. I’d like to go away to school.”
My mother was raising two boys on her own while running a small hair salon and would have to take on another job or two to make that happen.
She looked me in the eyes and asked me a simple question: “Casey, are you worth it?”
It was a question that I had to answer for myself. She wasn’t thinking about her own sacrifice and the cost of a private education. My mother was asking me to discover my own value.
“Yes, I am worth it,” I told her.
It was that fork-in-the-road moment in my life where my future could have been decidedly different.
I doubt that I would even be alive today to write this blog if she hadn't guided me down the right path.
When I became a professional journalist, I dispatched her across Cape Cod if I got word of a breaking story. She was one of the first to arrive at the Kennedy family compound after JFK Jr.’s plane went missing and convinced the neighbors, many of whom were her hairdressing customers, to speak to me for my news stories.
I had a nickname for her: Scoop Dodd from Cape Cod.
When I became an author, I would present each manuscript to my mum before passing it along to my editor. She would study each line with a red pen held firmly in her tiny hand. She marked up my prose like a true pro and always baked me an apple pie to make her criticism easier for me to swallow.
She was loving but firm, and she was right every time. Her recommendations made each of my books better.
The last book she pre-edited for me was my USA Today bestseller, A MURDER IN HOLLYWOOD. In fact, it was her idea that led me to approach Hollywood legend Lana Turner not as a femme fatale, but as a feminist hero, much like my mum.
I miss our conversations about writing and everything else we talked about. Most importantly, I miss the love she had for her grandchildren, Bella and Mia, along with my wife, Kristin, and me.
Happy Mother’s Day, mum. And Happy Birthday, too!
