From noted ESPN commentator and journalist Kate Fagan, the heartbreaking and vital story of college athlete Madison Holleran, whose death by suicide rocked the University of Pennsylvania campus and whose life reveals with haunting detail and uncommon understanding the struggle of young people suffering from mental illness today
If you scrolled through the Instagram feed of 19-year-old Maddy Holleran, you would see a perfect life: a freshman at an Ivy League school, recruited for the track team, who was also beautiful, popular, and fiercely intelligent. This was a girl who succeeded at everything she tried, and who was only getting started.
But when Maddy began her long-awaited college career, her parents noticed something changed. Previously indefatigable Maddy became withdrawn, and her thoughts centered on how she could change her life. In spite of thousands of hours of practice and study, she contemplated transferring from the school that had once been her dream. When Maddy's dad, Jim, dropped her off for the first day of spring semester, she held him a second longer than usual. That would be the last time Jim would see his daughter.
WHAT MADE MADDY RUN began as a piece that Kate Fagan, a columnist for espnW, wrote about Maddy's life. What started as a profile of a successful young athlete whose life ended in suicide became so much larger when Fagan started to hear from other college athletes also struggling with mental illness. This is the story of Maddy Holleran's life, and her struggle with depression, which also reveals the mounting pressures young people, and college athletes in particular, face to be perfect, especially in an age of relentless connectivity and social media saturation.
Brand: Fagan Kate
Published on: 2017-08-01
Released on: 2017-08-01
Original language: English
Dimensions: 9.50" h x 1.13" w x 6.50" l,
Binding: Hardcover
320 pages
Review
"A provocative and thoughtful look at a student-athlete suicide that rocked the nation--but didn't, until now, actually help inform the nation. A labor of love and prevention by Kate Fagan, and Maddy's family and friends." - Stephen Fried, best-selling author of Thing of Beauty and with Patrick Kennedy, A Common Struggle
"A compassionate and frank look at depression and the social pressure faced by many college students as seen through the eyes of one young woman."
- Kirkus
"Fagan's book is well-researched and the message is timely and important." - Publishers Weekly
"It is impossible not to be affected by Holleran's heart-wrenching story. An appropriate (if difficult) read for current and future college athletes, their coaches, and parents."
- Library Journal
"Throughout telling Maddy's story, Fagan does an exceptional job weaving in her experience of venturing into Maddy's troubled past" - Women's Running
"Holleran seems so alive on the page; her messages and Fagan's prose create someone who seems a real, living thing, so much so that by the end, this reader was rooting for her to talk to someone" - Flotrack
"Gripping and universal" - Trevor Noah, The Daily Show
"Sports columnist Fagan has written a compelling book that places Madison's story within the larger context of mental illness, the pressure-cooker environment of college sports and how many student athletes struggle to keep up in an atmosphere that emphasizes performance above all." - New York Daily News
"With immense empathy, [Fagan] shares insights particular to student athletes, but presents them in universally accessible language and connects with the non-athlete through vivid examples" - Shelf-Awareness
About the Author
Kate Fagan is a columnist and feature writer for espnW, ESPN.com and ESPN The Magazine. She is also a regular panelist on ESPN's Around the Horn and can also be seen on Outside the Lines, First Take and His & Hers. Previously, Fagan spent three seasons covering the 76ers for the Philadelphia Inquirer. She is the author of a memoir, The Reappearing Act, and co-host of the espnW podcast, Free Cookies. Kate lives in Brooklyn, New York with her girlfriend Kathryn Budig, and their two dogs.
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