Michael Collins
Apollo 11
“Susan’s story is the most accurate description of the lives of the “astronaut wives” I have ever read.”
Dave Scott
Apollo 15
“Perhaps the most human story to emerge from mankind’s greatest technological achievement.”
Capt. Phil ‘Rowdy’ Yates (USN Ret.)
Chief U.S. Navy Test Pilot, Joint Strike Fighter CDP
“In December 1968, Apollo 8 became the first manned spacecraft to orbit the moon. Famous for the earthrise photograph and Christmas Eve broadcast of the astronauts reading Genesis, the mission was commanded by Frank Borman, whose life presented the perfect image for NASA. Jorgensen writes candidly here of what was actually going on behind closed doors as Borman pursued his career and his wife, Susan, struggled to maintain the perfect picture that everyone insisted must be projected at all costs. Susan was falling to pieces, however, and her breakdown, and how much of her suffering Frank ignored, forms the core of this intense and emotional biography. Drawing heavily on interviews with Borman, his sons, fellow astronauts, and their wives, Jorgensen has crafted a compulsively readable look at the lives of a family who hold an indelible place in American history. For readers of Lily Koppel’s The Astronaut Wives Club (2013), this is a more personal and focused story, a tale in which few punches are pulled, and all the collateral damage of being one of America’s heroes is laid bare. ”
Colleen Mondor
Booklist
