One Sunny Afternoon: A Memoir of Trauma and Healing reflects on past traumas, sexual abuse, online bullying, and harassment. This is a deeply personal memoir about facing life-long trauma head on, and bravely healing the scars that endure. It’s a searing testament to the authors extraordinary reckoning with her past and present, to find hope in their future.

For writer and human rights advocate Amanda Jetté Knox, the inspiring story of their family’s journey of love and acceptance when both their child and partner came out as transgender one after the other, was the hopeful beginning to their new lives. This journey was shared in their first memoir, Love Lives Here: A Story of Thriving in a Transgender Family.

Yet in the spring of 2020, Jetté Knox began to experience targeted attacks on social media, and they soon became the subject of a small but very vocal group that criticized the book’s success and  advocacy work. The intensity of the backlash grew and drove Jetté Knox to contemplate suicide. But instead of taking their life, on one sunny afternoon, the went to the hospital to seek help.

Triggered by the online harassment, they wade through their personal history, and detail the incidents of violence, addiction, and sexual assault that have haunted them. When they eventually receive a diagnosis of Anxiety Disorder and Mood Disorder (also known as complex PTSD) and dedicates themself to recovery, they emerge with newfound strength, resiliency, and confidence.

One Sunny Afternoon is a searing testament to Amanda Jetté Knox’s extraordinary reckoning with their past and present, to find hope in her future. A moving and candid account of how trauma can shape us, but not define us, and reveals how even in our darkest moments—and on our most hopeless days—light can find its way in. 

September is National Suicide Prevention Awareness Month. Available from Penguin Random House.

Amanda Jetté Knox is an award-winning journalist, writer, certified professional coach, and human rights advocate with a special focus on LGBTQ2+ rights and mental health. Love Lives Here: A Story of Thriving in a Transgender Family was a #1 bestseller, an Indigo Best Book of the Year and Staff Pick of the Month, and was chosen for the 2020 Canada Reads Longlist. Their work has been featured on the BBC, CBC, The Today Show, O Magazine, The Social, and The Marilyn Denis Show. They are a 2019 Chatelaine Woman of the Year, a 2020 Top 25 Woman of Influence, and was chosen as one of 2020’s Most Influential Parents by Today’s Parent. They were the 2020 gold winner in Best Column from the Canadian Digital Publishing Awards. They live in Toronto.

 

About the Author

Bryen Dunn is a freelance journalist based in Toronto with a focus on tourism, lifestyle, entertainment and community issues. He has written several travel articles and has an extensive portfolio of celebrity interviews with musicians, actors and other public personalities. He’s willing to take on any assignments of interest, attend parties with free booze, listen to rants, and travel the world in search of the great unknown. He’s eager to discover the new, remember the past, and look into the future.