Round Up: Spring and Summer Memoirs

-- Library Journal, 6/6/2006

This spring, LJ’s bookroom saw an unprecedented deluge of memoirs ranging over dysfunctional childhoods, love-seeking singletons, and the pains of parenthood. Call it the James Frey effect, or call it plain overkill. Whatever you do, just make sure to order some of these worthy titles because memoir is bigger than ever.—Heather McCormack

Belle. Belle de Jour: Diary of an Unlikely Call Girl. Warner. Jul. 2006. c.304p. ISBN0-446-57725-1. $24.95. PSYCH

Belle, the pseudonym of a 28-year-old Londoner, adapted this tale of her call girl life from her blog, www.belledejour.co.uk, which the Guardian named the “Best Written British Blog.” Commencing shortly after Belle enters her profession, the diary-style narrative moves through nine months, offering entries on her sex work, personal life, and general musings. Belle particularly excels at drawing her (mostly straight male) friends and family, creating characters that endear themselves to the reader. Through clever, insightful writing, the author also endears herself and defies what one might expect from a working girl’s memoir, though there are graphic descriptions of her sex work. Overall, a tantalizing, funny, and delightful read, though it should be noted that a quick glance at the web site suggests that most, if not all, of the tome can be read for free. Recommended for public libraries.—Amanda Glasbrenner, Chicago

Carlip, Hillary. Queen of the Oddballs: And Other True Stories from a Life Unaccording to Plan. Harper. May 2006. c.288p. ISBN 0-06-087883-5. pap. $13.95.

Multi-talented Hollywood insider Carlip (Girl Power)—who has written commentaries for NPR and acted professionally—offers a truly hilarious recounting of the various “oddball” enterprises that constitute her life. An L.A. native, she grew up in a culture of celebrity that allowed her brushes with fame and the famous, including her “friendship” with an emerging Carly Simon. Another teen venture involves Carlip’s summer project of stalking Carole King. The author herself becomes a celebrity of sorts when she learns juggling and performs professionally. Ever unorthodox, Carlip comes out as a lesbian and reveals amusing details about her quest for a lasting relationship. Reminiscent of other quirky, humorous memoirs such as Jennifer Traig’s Devil in the Details, this is a record of ordinary events in an extraordinary life. Recommended for large public and university libraries.—Lynne C. Maxwell, Villanova Univ. Sch. of Law Lib., PA

Harrison, Bridget. Tabloid Love: Looking for Mr. Right in All the Wrong Places. Da Capo. Jun. 2006. c.432p. ISBN 0-7382-1044-7 [ISBN 978-0-7382-1044-5]. $24.

What’s it like being single and dating in New York City? Meet Bridget Harrison, a thirtysomething Brit who chucks it all to come to the States and work for the New York Post. At 29, she is offered the opportunity of a lifetime—to write a column about her dating excursions in a city full of singles. As millions of New Yorkers follow Bridget’s (mostly horrific) dates every Sunday, her life becomes like a juicy gossip read. But when true love presents itself, Bridget must make a choice between the column she loves and the relationship she wants. Despite being somewhat predictable in a chick-lit way (columnist falls for editor; columnist dates editor), Harrison’s memoir is good fun. Readers will be intrigued to know what happens to Bridget’s love life, and the pages keep turning. It makes you wonder where her love life is at currently. Recommended for public libraries, especially those in big cities.—Erin Miller, Library Journal

Lassez, Sarah with Gian Sardar. Psychic Junkie. Simon Spotlight Entertainment: S. & S. Jul. 2006. c.336p. ISBN 1-4169-1838-8 [ISBN 978-1-4169-1838-7]. pap. $14.95. PSYCH

With the help of writer Sardar, indie film actress Lassez here recounts the debt and destruction caused by her addiction to psychics. Lassez’s obsessive-compulsive disorder (she is diagnosed late in the book) makes it nearly impossible for her to deal with life’s uncertainties. Her acting career is already unbearably unstable—then Lassez’s relationship with a German chef begins to crumble amid psychic predictions of an engagement. Thus commences her descent to rock bottom as she consults costly phone psychics constantly and hacks into her boyfriend’s email account. Her realizations regarding the telephone psychic industry that lead to her recovery will leave readers somewhat shocked by her initial naiveté. Luckily for us, Lassez is able to keep her sense of humor during this dark period in her life (at least in retrospect), treating readers to some laugh-out-loud moments. Recommended for public libraries.—Amanda Glasbrenner, Chicago

Martini, Adrienne. Hillbilly Gothic: A Memoir of Madness and Motherhood. Free Pr. Jul. 2006. c.208p. ISBN 0-7432-7273-0. $23.

Fortunately, madness and motherhood are not normally intertwined, but in this unsettling memoir, Martini, a freelance writer, prolific book reviewer, and former newspaper editor, provides a haunting account of what happens when they are. Martini’s heritage doesn’t bode well for maternity, as her mother and grandmother experienced severe depression after giving birth. From the beginning of her own journey into parenthood, Martini knows that something is amiss—she doesn’t feel the bliss associated with maternity. After her daughter is born, Martini struggles to care for the baby and eventually breaks down and seeks hospitalization. Despite an excellent support system, she toils to recover, learning more about postpartum depression than she ever wished. Similar to Brooke Shields’s powerful Down Came the Rain, this book successfully immerses the reader in the morass of postpartum depression. Recommended for larger public and university library collections.—Lynne C. Maxwell, Villanova Univ. Sch. of Law Lib., PA

McCall, Catherine. Lifeguarding: A Memoir of Secrets, Swimming, and the South. Harmony: Crown. Jul. 2006. c.272p. ISBN 1-4000-9818-1. $23.

Psychiatrist McCall grew up the middle child in a family strained by alcoholism. Until she was 13, she and her siblings never knew when their father might come home at night or turn up at one of their swim meets with breath whisky-sour and speech slurring. Catherine coped, as many children of alcoholics do, by styling herself as a model child—dependable, mature, “born 21,” as her mother would say. But this preternatural maturity ultimately prevents Catherine from being who she is—warts and all—and as she grows and discovers that she is gay, the need to be perfect threatens to undo her. McCall’s engaging writing compels the reader to care about this fractured but still fused family, although the prose can veer from moving to melodramatic, leaning too much on clichéd, heavyhanded metaphors (e.g., references to drowning, being pulled under, tidal waves). Recommended for large public libraries.—Tania Barnes, Library Journal

McKeithen, Madge. Blue Peninsula: Essential Words for a Life of Loss and Change. Farrar. May 2006. c.240p. ISBN 0-374-11502-8 [ISBN 978-0-374-11502-9]. $22.

At age 14, McKeithen’s first son, Ike, began experiencing stiffness in his legs. Today, at 22, he’s lost much of his mobility, has trouble reasoning, and has to live in an assisted-care facility; doctors are no closer to diagnosing his disease than they were eight years ago. How does a mother cope with such a fate—and unknown future? If she’s McKeithen, she turns to poetry, whose acknowledgement of life’s mysteries and messiness provides her haven. Elizabeth Bishop, Czeslaw Milosz, George MacDonald, Billy Collins, and others become her constant companions, helping her to shape and understand her despair, anger, and hope. McKeithen writes like a poet herself, and her sentiments can be just as poignant and heartbreaking as those of the small and sometimes perfect poems she includes. Readers searching for their own shelter will find solace here, too. Recommended for all public libraries.—Tania Barnes, Library Journal

Moore, Patrick. Tweaked: A Crystal Memoir. Kensington. Jun. 2006. c.224p. ISBN 0-7582-1265-8. pap. $15.

In this powerful memoir, journalist Moore, whose work has appeared in the New York Times, recounts his wild, profligate, drug-fueled adventures as a gay man at the center of the bar scene as AIDS strikes New York in the early 1980s. A misfit who yearned to escape from his native Iowa, Moore eventually ended up in the Big Apple with his lover, Dino. Like so many gay men in that frenetic era, Moore had sex with multiple partners despite his attachment to Dino. For Moore, drugs and alcohol freed his sexual inhibitions, and that combination created a need for more drugs and sex, especially after Dino succumbed to AIDS. Cocaine and crystal meth, otherwise known as “tweak,” became his drugs of choice. After Dino’s death, Moore moved to L.A., where he pursued—and eventually kicked—his habit. Touching and compelling, this memoir is reminiscent of Augusten Burroughs’s Dry. Recommended for large public and university library collections.—Lynne C. Maxwell, Villanova Univ. Sch. of Law Lib., PA

O’Beirne, Kathy. Kathy’s Story: The True Story of a Childhood Hell Inside Ireland’s Magdalen Laundries. Greystone, dist. by Publishers Group West. May 2006. c.223p. ISBN 1-55365-168-5. pap. $16.95.

O’Beirne’s childhood was gothically dismal. Beaten by her father from an early age and sexually abused by local boys, she’s sent at age seven to a boarding house (to call it a school would be far too generous—the only skills the children learn are how to scrape by with lies, cunning, and defiance), at ten to a “loony bin,” and later to the notorious Magdalen laundries, institutions for “fallen” women and lost girls run by the Catholic Church in Ireland. Throughout, O’Beirne is beaten and abused so brutally and so consistently it’s a wonder she’s survived at all. Her only source of solace is her loving but distant “mam” (mom)—whom she somewhat frustratingly refuses to blame for any of the sorrows that befall her—and the other hapless girls she meets in lock-up. Via her child’s voice, O’Beirne reduces most characters to caricature—skulking villain, saving grace—and the poetry included at the beginning of each chapter reads like a goth kid’s musings on pain and suffering. No matter, the real point here is the story, which is shocking in its severity; if it doesn’t reduce you to tears and outrage, you’ve got no heart. For public libraries and all child abuse collections.—Tania Barnes, Library Journal

Reich, Howard. The First and Final Nightmare of Sonia Reich: A Son’s Memoir. PublicAffairs. Jun. 2006. c.272p. ISBN 1-58648-362-5 [ISBN 978-158648362-3]. $25.

Reich’s memoir is a somewhat unfocused portrait of his life and his mother’s battle with late onset post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). What begins as a lovely, evocative portrait of a Chicago childhood skips, somewhat jarringly, to a bare-bones description of Reich’s college life and marriage before settling on an exploration of his mother’s PTSD. A survivor of the Holocaust, Sonia Reich becomes convinced, well into her sixties, that someone is trying to kill her. Her story is as compelling as it is bizarre, yet Reich’s spare writing can feel oddly stilted and strangely dispassionate—perhaps echoing his own bewilderment at his mother’s seemingly sudden affliction. It isn’t until he travels to Sonia’s childhood home in Poland in the final chapters that he—and the reader—finally begin to connect to this horrifically sad story. Recommended for larger collections.—Tania Barnes, Library Journal

Smith, Gordon. Remembering Garrett: One Family’s Battle with a Child’s Depression. Carroll & Graf. May 2006. c.224p. ISBN 0-7867-1762-9. $23.

Like Pete Earley in Crazy: A Father’s Search Through America’s Mental Health Madness and Paul Raeburn in Acquainted with the Night: A Parent’s Quest To Understand Depression and Bipolar Depression in His Children, first-time author and U.S. Senator Smith is a father attempting to make sense of his son’s mental illness. Unlike Earley and Raeburn, however, Smith lost his adopted bipolar son to suicide. This is his loving testimonial to Garrett, who struggled for years with dyslexia, depression, and feelings of inadequacy before his death. Smith acknowledges his fatal blindness, driven at times by his professional commitments, to the significance of Garrett’s increasing emotional liability. The intent here, then, is to alert other parents to the signs of depression in their children. Smith has also rededicated his political career to passing legislation to assist in preventing youth suicide. Recommended for large public and university library collections.—Lynne F. Maxwell, Villanova Univ. Sch. of Law Lib., Villanova, PA

Spero, Wendy. Microthrills. Hudson Hills. Aug. 2006. c.256p. ISBN 1-59463-019-4. $21.95.

From the East Coast comes another comic memoir from native New Yorker and L.A. transplant Spero, a comedian, actress, playwright, and freelance writer. Like Hillary Carlip’s Queen of the Oddballs (see above), this memoir focuses on bizarre coming-of-age experiences that will make readers laugh aloud. Imagine, for instance, Spero’s first job after graduating from Wesleyan: traveling knife saleswoman. What begins as a scam to extract money from the salespeople themselves actually turns into a surprisingly successful and lucrative business venture for Spero, who uses her talents to create demand for her product. Much of the narrative features the author’s mother, a widowed social worker who specializes in sex therapy in order to support her daughter as a single parent. Indeed, Spero’s mother insists that she attend a good college and get into a prestigious profession such as dermatology or law, so that, as a single parent, she can support her family. Recommended for large public and university library collections.—Lynne C. Maxwell, Villanova Univ. Sch. of Law Lib., PA

Zada, Rania. Egyptian Exotica: A Memoir of Dancing Naked. Ig, dist. by Consortium. Jun. 2006. c.226p. ISBN 0-9771972-0-4. pap. $13.95. PSYCH

Born in Egypt, first-time author Zada winds up in Los Angeles as a teenager, eventually strip dancing in San Francisco in her early twenties. After working at a variety of clubs in that city, she moves to New Orleans and continues dancing. Zada presents her dancing experiences, her personal and romantic life, and bits and pieces of her youth in an oddly detached way. One of the problems with her story is the vague snobbery with which nearly every other dancer is described; readers, as a result, will feel distanced from the stripping experience. Throughout, Zada also has difficulty reconciling her writer’s mind and her stripper’s body. The memoir closes with her quitting the stripping life, but ending there feels abrupt owing to Zada’s inclusion of vignettes about her difficult upbringing and portrayal of herself as a troubled dancer. Best read for the behind-the-scenes glimpses into strip clubs and the women who work there, this book amounts to a kind of literary rubber-necking. Recommended for large collections.—Amanda Glasbrenner, Chicago