The Family Outing: A Memoir

Technology and social-media journalist Hempel’s debut memoir came about during the pandemic when she reached out to interview five members of her unconventional family and record their coming-out stories. Hempel, who hosts the Hello Monday podcast, writes, “We all came out of the closet and now we’re okay,” but that was a process that took decades for deep family secrets to surface, with her siblings and their parents all finding themselves in the process. Both the author and her father came out as gay, her sister as bisexual, her brother as transgender, and her mother as a survivor of trauma and depression stemming from her close proximity to the “Ypsilanti Ripper,” a serial killer who terrorized her neighborhood in the late 1960s. The author’s narration is warm and congenial, guiding listeners on her compelling journey.