January 2012

The Woman Warrior

I grew up in a small Midwestern town where a variety of culture was scarce at best. I think that's one of the biggest reasons I was shocked by Maxine Hong Kingston's The Woman Warrior: Memoirs of a Girlhood Among Ghosts. It was an eye-opening piece of literature for a small-town guy like me and the fact that it was on my high school reading list astonished me.

Now, looking back, I can see what a masterpiece the book truly is. It wasn't an attack on American culture as I'd first thought, but a vivid recounting of one Chinese woman's childhood as she struggled to make sense of the two worlds she was living in.

Read more about The Woman Warrior

Driving with Dead People: A Memoir

I've read many books and memoirs, but few as memorable and gripping as Monica Holloway's Driving with Dead People: A Memoir. It begins like many before it. The author introduces you to herself as a youth and the strange family and surroundings that are imprinted in her mind. The difference is that while there are plenty of books that point out a family's eccentricities not many compare to Holloway's.

Her father's bizarre hobby of video taping local tragedies and disasters, of which her neighborhood seemed to have more than a fair share, mixed with a history of abuse and parental indifference leads Holloway to an obsession with death. Befriending a mortician’s daughter, her playground is a casket room and later her job, a driver that picks dead bodies up from the airport. As adults, she and her older sister recover repressed memories of being sexually abused as children. And despite the soul-rocking realities of her young life, she becomes a remarkable, successful driven woman.

This book is shocking, not only because of the tragic, disturbing story, but also Holloway's grace and even humor as she reveals what would leave many a quivering mess. Her mother's selfish immaturity. Her father's sick obsessions. Wondering if she were better off dead. Read more about Driving with Dead People: A Memoir

Still Love in Strange Places: A Memoir

Marrying someone means marrying his or her family. We've all heard it before, and for most Americans, that means accepting quirks, and sometimes frustrations, of their in-laws. But what if you have to leave the familiar confines of our country's borders to really get a sense of and understand where your beloved spouse came from and what made him who is?

Author Beth Kephart shares the experience of understanding her husband's roots by traveling to his native country, El Salvador, in Still Love in Strange Places: A Memoir. This brilliant work is like few memoirs because Kephart's accounts are written in such a poetic, gripping way. Her descriptions of the foreign, war-torn, beautiful land of her husband's people is just as captivating as the tale itself.

Considering herself a “white-bread,” “risk-averse” American woman didn't stop the passion felt for wanting to dig into a deeper understanding of her husband's history. Because of her love for him, she was compelled to travel to his family's coffee farm in the jungles of El Salvador, despite the risks, to gain a deeper sense of the youth that made him into the man he was to become. Read more about Still Love in Strange Places: A Memoir

Life Itself: A Memoir Of Roger Ebert

I remember watching Siskel and Ebert at the Movies when I was a kid. In my youth, I found it interesting to listen to these famous movie critics sound off on what they thought of the movies of the day, and always looked forward to their inevitable thumbs up or thumbs down. It was like a sentence being passed down by official judges. Pure awesome.

As I got older and could better understand and judge the integrity and enjoyability of movies for myself, I often found myself at conflict with my movie critic heroes' judgments. Still, I always valued their critiques and loved to read them anyway, even if I couldn't challenge their verdicts in person.

When I came across Roger Ebert's memoir, Life Itself, I was compelled to pick it up. After all, I grew up watching the man every single week and idolizing him for what seemed like the coolest job on the planet.

The book chronicled his life from his charmed childhood in central Illinois to his wins and losses as an adult, both in his career and personal life. He discussed his life in the entertainment industry and the ups and downs of being in the public eye along with how he coped with life after his battle with thyroid cancer. Read more about Life Itself: A Memoir Of Roger Ebert

Memoir Book Club

Memoirs written by your favorite celebrities and historical figures

Account

The Woman Warrior

Driving with Dead People: A Memoir

Still Love in Strange Places: A Memoir

Life Itself: A Memoir Of Roger Ebert