If you’ve been following the podcast for awhile, you’ll know that we love memoirs. Back in January, Jette wrote about her Top 5 Memoir Books, so I decided I should add to that list with my own top five.
Like Jette, I tend to be drawn to memoirs that will emotionally devastate you. I’m also a sucker for gorgeous prose, which is exactly what you’ll find in each of the following books. Themes of grief, fraught relationships, and identity run through all of the best memoir books. The authors write with raw honesty and reveal themselves in a way I can’t ever imagine doing. But I can’t get enough of other people’s bravery and personal storytelling
Gen’s Top 5 Best Memoir Books
It’s always hard for a book lover to pick favourites, but whenever anyone asks me about great memoirs, these are the top five books that come to mind.
1. Just Kids by Patti Smith
Just Kids resulted in a massive book hangover. I think it even made me cry, which is saying a lot because I rarely cry. In this memoir, Patti Smith chronicles her early days living in New York City and her relationship with photographer Robert Mapplethorpe. It is beautifully written and offers a glimpse into those mythic days of NYC and the Chelsea Hotel in the sixties and seventies, occupied by struggling artists and musicians scraping together a living. As soon as I finished reading it, I wanted to start it all over again.
2. The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion
While perhaps an obvious choice, no one does it like Joan Didion. In The Year of Magical Thinking, Didion recounts the year following her husband’s sudden death, which occurred just days after their only daughter was put into a medically induced coma and placed on life support. It is a candid account of grief and the strange ways it affects the mind—like when she can’t get rid of her husband’s clothes because her mind keeps telling her he still needs them. This memoir is her attempt to make sense of that time, written with her trademark honesty and intensity. It is both beautiful and devastating.
3. Darling Days by iO Tillett Wright
I’m constantly recommending Darling Days, no matter who you are or what kind of book you’re looking for. It’s one of my all time favourites. If you love Just Kids, read this one next. iO Tillett Wright writes about growing up in poverty in New York City in the eighties and nineties with his mercurial and domineering mother. It’s a tense relationship, filled with love, anger, resentment, deprivation, and, eventually, forgiveness. In the midst of that relationship, iO also grapples with gender and identity. Ultimately, it is a story of resilience and bonds broken, then mended.
4. In the Dream House by Carmen Maria Machado
I think I read In the Dream House in two sittings. Carmen Maria Machado’s prose draws you in and the short sections propel you forward. Machado tackles the often overlooked, sometimes blatantly ignored, issue of abuse in same-sex relationships by writing about her own experience. The book is told in a series of vignettes that take the form of various narrative tropes and structures, giving the reader “Dream House as Picaresque,” “Dream House as Inciting Incident,” and “Dream House as Time Travel.” It’s a masterful experiment of form and style that immediately solidified Machado as a must-read author for me.
5. Long Live the Tribe of Fatherless Girls by T Kira Madden
I’ll admit I was initially drawn to this book solely for the cover and the title. I’m happy to report that the story contained therein more than lives up to its exterior. Long Live the Tribe of Fatherless Girls moves back and forth in time as T Kira Madden tells her story of growing up in Boca Raton, Florida. Beneath the immense financial privilege gained from her designer-shoe name (yes, that Madden), lies the wildly unstable home life of an only child whose parents are constantly struggling with addiction. It’s a gorgeously written coming-of-age story that reckons with trauma, bi-racial identity, burgeoning queer desire, and the fraught relationship between a daughter and her parents. I couldn’t put it down.
Memoirs Will Always Inspire Us
As a writer, memoirs are both inspirational and terrifying. The authors draw us in and share their real lives so generously, but the thought of doing that myself feels way too vulnerable. For now, I’ll keep reading memoirs to dive into the rawness of human experience and leave the writing to others.
What is your favourite memoir of all time?
