U.S. Rep. Jamie Raskin Publishes Memoir, 'Unthinkable,' About Son's Death, Insurrection

TAKOMA PARK, MD — A year after his son’s death and the Jan. 6 Capitol attack, U.S. Rep Jamie Raskin is releasing his book, “Unthinkable.”

The Takoma Park Democrat and 8th Congressional District representative writes about losing his son, Tommy, a 25-year-old Harvard Law student, to suicide on Dec. 31, 2020. One day after Tommy’s funeral, Raskin, his daughter, and his son-in-law were inside the Capitol when they learned it had been breached.

Raskin was taken away from the chamber by security forces, while his daughter and son-in-law hid under House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer's desk.

"We experienced a terrible family tragedy in the last week, and so I had one of my daughters with me — and a son-in-law with me — because we wanted to be together," Raskin said in an interview with C-SPAN after the attack last year. "I thought I could show them the peaceful transfer of power in the United States of America."

Raskin says he was blindsided by Tommy’s death, and wishes he had seen more of the warning signs. He said that he regrets not having frank conversations with his son about suicide, and urged other parents to not avoid saying the word to their children.

“You may think that you're somehow suppressing the possibility of its emergence later, but you’re not,” Raskin said on MSNBC Wednesday. “You’re just endowing the word and the idea with more power by not talking about it, so you need to train it of power by having that conversation.”

Raskin has said he holds that same mindset for politics and fascism — ideas need to be addressed and talked about. Raskin writes in his book that watching the insurrection would have wrecked his son, NPR reported.

Tommy had strong moral and political passions, Raskin said, including the way mental health is often ignored in boys and men.

After Tommy’s death, the family received more than 15,000 messages and the idea of responding to each individually is what prompted Raskin to write his book, according to NPR.

“I think it feels right because of who he was and what he wanted for the world,” Raskin told Rachel Maddow.

His book, "Unthinkable: Trauma, Truth, And The Trials Of American Democracy," is on sale now.

"I have learned that trauma can steal everything from you that is most precious and rip joy right out of your life," Raskin wrote in his book, as reported by NPR. "But, paradoxically, it can also make you stronger and wiser, and connect you more deeply to other people than you ever imagined by enabling you to touch their misfortunes and integrate their losses and pain with your own."