Real Lives: Gritty Memoirs (Adult)
From Wiki
Article in Category:Adult Nonfiction and Category:Biography.
Stories of real people dealing with everything that life can throw at them.
You may also enjoy Outstanding Memoirs and Narrative nonfiction
- 92 Abbott, Alysia
- Fairyland: A Memoir of My Father by Alysia Abbott
- Raised by her bisexual, widowed father in 1970s and 80s San Francisco, Abbott bears witness to the devastation AIDS brought to her community.
- 92 Auslander, Shalom
- Foreskin's Lament by Shalom Auslander
- After growing up in and being exiled from a strict, isolated Orthodox community, Auslander deals with his anger towards God and his dysfunctional family through dry humor.
- 92 Burroughs, Augusten
- 92 Burroughs, Augusten
- 362.1968588 Robison, John Elder
- Look Me in the Eye: My Life with Asperger's
- Brothers Burroughs and Robison offer differing accounts of their chaotic childhoods in these three memoirs. Burroughs writes about his addictions and Robison writes about life with Asperger’s.
- 92 Carroll, Linda
- Her Mother's Daughter
- The daughter of author Paula Fox examines her fraught relationship with her adoptive parents, her search for her biological mother and difficulties with her own troubled daughter, Courtney Love.
- 92 Cumming, Alan
- While trying to resolve the disappearance of his maternal grandfather, the actor is faced with shocking information about his abusive father.
- 92 Lagnado, Lucette
- The Man in the White Sharksin Suit
- Raised elegantly in Cairo by her dapper father, Lagnado’s life is upended when political turmoil in Egypt forces the family into poverty in France and America.
- 92 Grealy, Lucy
- 92 Patchett, Ann
- Truth & Beauty: A Friendship
- Grealy, whose face was disfigured by childhood cancer, formed an intimate friendship with Patchett. Taken together, the two memoirs record their devotion and despair.
- 92 Russo, Richard
- Elsewhere
- The Pulitzer Prize-winning chronicler of Upstate New York recalls growing up there in the 1950s with a charming alcoholic father and a very involved mother.
- 92 Scheeres, Julia
- Jesus Land
- Scheeres tries to protect her adopted African American brother from racism inside and outside of the family. The two draw closer together while trying to survive in a reform school “boot camp” in the Dominican Republic.
- 92 Shteyngart, Gary
- Little Failure
- Shteyngart wryly recalls his confusing childhood as a young immigrant from Soviet Russia to America and his parents’ influence, which included nicknaming him “Little Failure.”
- 92 Varner, Jay
- Nothing Left to Burn
- Local author Varner explores his troubled relationship with his firefighting father and serial arsonist grandfather.
- 92 Vonnegut, Mark
- Just Like Someone without Mental Illness, Only More So
- Mark, brother of Kurt Vonnegut, picks up where his acclaimed memoir Eden Express left off, detailing his struggles with mental illness and his success as a pediatrician.
- 92 Winterson, Jeanette
- Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal?
- Raised in a brutal, unhappy home by religiously conservative parents, the award-winning author is compelled as an adult to search for her biological mother in a quest for identity, love and home.
- 362.19683 Cahalan, Susannah
- Brain on Fire: My Month of Madness
- Cahalan’s suddenly bizarre behavior and scary symptoms threaten her life until an unlikely last-minute diagnosis offers her hope of recovery.
- 362.293 Carr, David
- The Night of the Gun
- The late New York Times reporter fact-checks the stories he’s told himself about his crack addiction and recovery by interviewing friends, family and colleagues with surprising results.
- 362.299 Sheff, David
- 362.299 Sheff, Nic
- 362.299 Sheff, Nic
- We All Fall Down: Living with Addiction
- These three interconnected memoirs relate Nic’s addictions from childhood through adulthood and his father David’s reactions.
- 362.74 Gwartney, Debra
- Live Through This
- Gwartney’s deeply bonded older daughters run away after their parents’ traumatic divorce and the whole family is caught up in the effort to reunite with them.
- 363.209 Busby, Cylin and John
- The Year We Disappeared
- The whole family is forced into hiding when an assassination attempt is made on father John, a police officer in a small town with dark secrets.
- 641.509 Hamilton, Gabrielle
- Blood, Bones, and Butter: The Inadvertent Education of a Reluctant Chef
- Noted New York chef Hamilton has always found meaning in food, whether in her boisterous childhood home, while traveling as a young adult or as a means to connect to her husband and his family.
- GN 92 Chast, Roz
- Can't We Talk About Something More Pleasant?
- New Yorker cartoonist Chast illustrates the bittersweet difficulties of dealing with her estranged parents at the end of their lives with grace and good humor.
- GN 92 Bechdel, Alison
- Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic
- Bechdel’s father ran a funeral home and taught high school English but was also gay, a secret revealed weeks before his death. Bechdel infuses her graphic novel with dark humor, literary allusions and sympathy.
