Stepping Back From the Ledge (USED)

A deeply moving memoir about grief, suicide loss, family trauma, and healing, Stepping Back from the Ledge explores how we mourn someone we love while confronting the pain they left behind.

Named a New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice and one of The New Yorker’s Best Books of the Year, Stepping Back from the Ledge by Laura Trujillo is an intimate and powerful memoir about the complicated bonds between mothers and daughters, the legacy of family trauma, and the possibility of finding hope after devastating loss.

Laura Trujillo had always shared a close relationship with her mother. She raised her four children just miles from their grandmother’s home in Phoenix, building a life in which her mother remained an important and beloved presence. But only three months after Laura moved her family to Cincinnati for a new job, she received unimaginable news: her mother had died by suicide at the Grand Canyon, a place she had deeply loved.

In the aftermath, Laura is left with grief—and questions that seem impossible to answer.

Despite their closeness, mother and daughter had each carried painful secrets. Years earlier, Laura revealed that she had experienced sexual abuse as a teenager at the hands of her stepfather, a truth she had kept hidden in an attempt to protect her mother. Following her mother’s death, Laura begins searching through her family's past, confronting depression, intergenerational trauma, buried pain, and the complicated ways love and hurt can exist within the same relationship.

Her search eventually brings her back to the Grand Canyon, where a place associated with unimaginable loss slowly becomes part of her journey toward understanding, forgiveness, and peace.

Raw, compassionate, and ultimately hopeful, Stepping Back from the Ledge is a remarkable exploration of grief after suicide, the mother-daughter relationship, family secrets, trauma, and what it means to move forward without forgetting the person you lost.

Why Read Stepping Back from the Ledge:

• A powerful memoir about grief, suicide loss, and healing
• An intimate exploration of a complicated mother-daughter relationship
• Examines intergenerational trauma, family secrets, depression, and forgiveness
• A moving story about finding hope and meaning after profound loss
• Named a New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice and a New Yorker Best Book of the Year

Perfect for readers of:

The Year of Magical Thinking, Crying in H Mart, Wild, and memoirs exploring grief, family relationships, trauma, resilience, and healing.

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