Have you ever read a book and thought, I wonder how this person has written my autobiography. Are we all alike? All of us whose parents failed in spectacular ways? All of us who turned the pain into pain that manifested itself outside instead? All of us who decided to obliterate the memories with alcohol? …
Continue reading “Dirtbag, Massachusetts: A Confessional – Isaac Fitzgerald”
Denmark’s most famous author(?), Ditlevsen chronicles her youth and marriage(s) in this Copenhagen Trilogy: three books now together in one book, still under 400 pages. Born in 1917, she writes of the poor, working-class neighborhood she grew up in, the difficulties of life in wartime, and her horrible, horrible mother. Good grief her mother is …
Continue reading “Childhood, Youth, Dependency – Tove Ditlevsen”
As a book person it’s hard not to idolize the 1920s Paris writer scene. All that drinking and sex and travel and saving the world through writing. Sigh. Hemingway gives us his “you can believe it’s true if you want” account of his time in Paris in the early ’20s with Joyce, Fitzgerald, and Stein. …
I didn’t realize this was a memoir about losing her mother, so be fore-warned. It’s also about being the daughter of a Korean mom and a white dad and not feeling like she had inherited the culture and food before her mother’s death. But Michelle gets cooking. This is a book you’ll cry with, and …
A friend sent me this book (Hi Natalie!) and I’m so grateful. I do love book mail, whatever it is, but book mall from friends is so special. Rust Belt Femme is exactly what the title says: Jolie tells us about her upbringing in Ohio and how it helped shape her current queer, femme self. …
This is a tough subject. Vanasco goes back after 14 years to talk to the friend who raped her. As she prepares for and executes the memoir, Vanasco comes to term with using the word rape, understanding that her experience isn’t less terrible for being less horrific than other rape stories, and that our conditioning …
Continue reading “Things We Didn’t Talk About When I Was A Girl – Jeannie Vanasco”
Have you, as an adult, explored your relationship to your early sexual encounters? Do you know how they’ve shaped you? Or how the patriarchy shaped everything? It was tough to look at for me, but I was glad to see myself in some of Febos’ stories. She struggled with boundaries and addiction, which led to …
Such an amazing, compelling memoir that I read it in one day on my phone thanks to my local library. I wanted to continue driving along with Randa watching her explore herself. Her healing gives me such confidence and the understanding that we can all come out of it more ourselves.
One woman’s recollections (and detailed look at the history of) of being the “third race” in America, between all the other Black people and the whites. The bourgeois Black community in Chicago that built its own high society, and from that perch looked down upon everyone. Jefferson leads us through the history of migration and …
An audio biography I got from the library. It was better/harder to listen to the narration, as hearing her voice describe the terrible abuse she suffered at the hands of her partner just made me sadder. It felt more personal. The language is beautiful – she’s an excellent writer – despite the hard topics. For …
Continue reading “In the Dream House – Carmen Maria Machado”
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