Brilliant Disguise (Köehler Books, 2024) is Susan Kellam’s journey to discover what she missed in her brother's 39 years as Big K, adored by all. And, why she—Little K—survived.

Only in retrospect can Susan piece together how Robert's too-brief life was a brilliant disguise. Traumatized by their childhood experience, he buried his pain behind an outsized personality. On his twelfth wedding anniversary in 1990, he ended his life. This book winds together Susan's rock-and-roll odyssey with an exploration of Robert's life, teasing out clues as to why the past so dangerously swamped him.

Books will be available for purchase ($20, cash, check, or Venmo).

About Susan Kellam
Susan Kellam started her career at Rolling Stone magazine when typewriters were still being flung across offices. Eventually leaving the rock-and-roll world for straight journalism, she received a 1985 Folio Award for a three-part series in The New York Times, "Battling for a Prize: Radio Station License." Her work has also appeared in The Washington Post, Washingtonian magazine, Congressional Quarterly, The Baltimore Sun, and numerous other places. She finished her full-time career as senior communications expert on domestic policy at the Brookings Institution.

The Obama administration tapped her to edit the Economic Report of the President for the four years of his second term; the Biden administration did the same for his first year. Susan was a contributing writer on the book, How Ten Global Cities Take on Homelessness (May 2021, University of California Press). She lives on a salt-water farm in Maine with two rambunctious dogs.