Nine New Memoirs of Family and Self-Discovery
Memoir is one of the most intimate forms of writing. The authors of these new books excavate their homes, their families, and themselves to uncover the truth as they’ve lived it. From Boston to Colombia, the farms of upstate New York to the streets of Derry, Ireland, the stories on this list offer a window into the lives of others.
Dirtbag, Massachusetts: A Confessional
by Isaac Fitzgerald
In Dirtbag, Massachusetts, Issac Fitzgerald, founding editor of BuzzFeed Books, explores a more expansive vision of masculinity in a series of personal essays that chronicle his journey growing up in a Boston homeless shelter and efforts to take control of his own story.
Crying in the Bathroom
by Erika L. Sánchez
In these essays, Sánchez writes about everything from sex to white feminism to debilitating depression, revealing an interior life rich with ideas, self-awareness, and perception.
The Crane Wife: A Memoir in Essays
by CJ Hauser
Expanding on her viral essay “The Crane Wife,” CJ Hauser presents this deeply personal, candid, and humorous memoir-in-essays that ponders what more expansive definitions of love might offer us all.
The Man Who Could Move Clouds
by Ingrid Rojas Contreras
Interweaving spellbinding family stories, resurrected Colombian history and her own deeply personal reckonings with the bounds of reality, the author shares her inheritance of “the secrets”—the power to talk to the dead, tell the future, treat the sick and move the clouds.
If There Are Any Heavens
by Nicholas Montemarano
On January 6, 2021, at the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic in America, while the U.S. Capitol is under attack, Nicholas Montemarano drives six hundred miles to see his mother, who is hospitalized with COVID pneumonia and in a critical state. For ten days he lives in a hotel minutes from the hospital, alternating between hope and helplessness. This is the story of those ten days.
Did Ye Hear Mammy Died?
by Séamas O'Reilly
An instant bestseller in Ireland, Did Ye Hear Mammy Died? is a book about a family of loud, argumentative, musical, sarcastic, grief-stricken siblings, shepherded into adulthood by a man whose foibles and reticence were matched only by his love for his children and his determination that they would flourish.
Voice of the Fish
by Lars Horn
Voice of the Fish is an interwoven essay collection that explores the trans experience through themes of water, fish, and mythology, set against the backdrop of travels in Russia and a debilitating back injury that left Horn temporarily unable to speak.
Pig Years
by Ellyn Gaydos
As a farmer in Upstate New York and Vermont, Ellyn Gaydos lives on the knife edge between loss and gain. In Pig Ears Gaydos asks us to bear witness to the work that sustains us all and to reconsider what we know of survival and what saves us.
Why Didn't You Tell Me?
by Carmen Rita Wong
When her immigrant mother’s long-held secrets are revealed, bringing clarity to so much of her life, the author searches to understand who she really is, in this story of race and culture in America and how they shape who we think we are.
Have trouble reading standard print? Many of these titles are available in formats for patrons with print disabilities.
Summaries provided via NYPL’s catalog, which draws from multiple sources. Click through to each book’s title for more.