Category Archives: memoirs

Pulling the Chariot of the Sun, by Shane McCrae**-***

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Pulling the Chariot of the Sun, by Shane McCrae, is a memoir that isn’t, or at least, it doesn’t read like one to me. Nevertheless, my thanks go to NetGalley and Scribner for the invitation to read and review. This book is for sale now.

As a preschooler, McCrae’s maternal grandparents took him from his parents and raised him themselves. They persuaded his mother that he would have more advantages living with them, and they later, McCrae says, pressured his father into signing the paperwork that made their act legal. His father was African-American and his mother was Caucasian; this is why they kidnapped him, to get him away from his father and his identity. He was raised being told that he was not Black, but a mixed child who was half Mexican. They continued to tell this story even after his appearance made the truth obvious.

In telling his story, McCrae is unable to access many of the details, and so instead, he takes poetic license, buys it a car and a chauffeur, and rolls with it. He says that a particular thing happened when he was six, or possibly eight, maybe nine…and so on. McCrae is, in fact, an award-winning poet, but poetry isn’t what I signed on for here, and about halfway through I quit reading. I started several times and stopped several times, which is how I come to be reviewing a 2023 title in 2026. I finally faced the fact that I would never completely finish this thing.

Those that enjoy unconventional prose may be more attracted to this story than I am. It certainly sounds like a dreadful ordeal, and yet, not every awful story comes with a readable memoir, and for me at least, this one doesn’t.

How to Be Okay When Nothing is Okay, by Jenny Lawson****

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Jenny Lawson is queen of the mental health memoir. I’ve read her for years and appreciated her candor, wit, and willingness to shine a light on the kinds of experiences that historically, others have mostly kept mum about. Her latest book, How to Be Okay When Nothing is Okay, is not her strongest work, but this says more about how remarkable her earlier books are than anything detrimental about this one.

My thanks go to NetGalley and Viking Penguin for the review copy.

I first encountered Lawson through her blog over a decade ago when she wrote about gifting her husband with a huge metal chicken sculpture. There’s something truly cleansing about laughter, not the gentle or wry type, but the gut-busting type that leaves us gasping for breath. I encountered this on subsequent occasions when she wrote in her quirky, sometimes bizarre way that was, at the same time, absolutely relatable and crystal clear. And I have to confess that I missed that quality this time around.

Instead, Lawson has written practical suggestions, ones that she has utilized herself, to help her get past stressful situations in which her mental health has threatened to melt her down. And in that sense, this book is more of a self-help book and perhaps less of a memoir. It may be tremendously useful to others encountering similar situations. I’ve been there; a great many others have, too. But right now, my own mental health is fine, and perhaps that accounts for some of the disconnect I experienced in reading this one. I suspect, however, that a whole lot of people will get a whole lot of help from this slender little book.

Recommended for those in a space where they need support and ideas for getting through a difficult time or situation.

Monsters in the Archives, by Caroline Bicks*****

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Monsters in the Archives: My Year of Fear with Stephen King is a masterpiece in its own right. Author Caroline Bicks was named as the first Stephen E. King Chair in Literature at the University of Maine, and she is the first person to be granted access to King’s personal archives. My thanks go to NetGalley and Random House for the review copy; this book is for sale now.

Bicks bases her book on five of King’s early novels: The Shining, Carrie, Pet Sematary, ‘Salem’s Lot, and Night Shift. Initially she was told that although King authorized this book and was willing for her to go through his archives, she must promise not to attempt to contact him or disturb him in any way. She agreed, then was given a great deal of his personal time and attention anyway. Though the book is of course primarily about King and his writing, she includes bits here and there that describe her own relationship to these stories. The result is a fluid, seamless book that appears effortless to have written, and yet must have been a massive amount of work. Her documentation is first rate, and the book itself is surprisingly brief, with not a single wasted word. Although it seems thorough, I was sorry when it ended.

I have long believed that King’s books are deeper and brainier than most scary novels, and I came away vindicated. Bicks is a Shakespeare scholar, and she had more specific insights than I did; turns out, as King confirms in one interview, that The Shining is actually Hamlet!

I had previously read that King isn’t fond of the movie versions of his most iconic works. In The Shining, poor direction transforms Jack Torrance, a tragic, pathetic figure fighting to stay sober and keep the demons at bay within himself—and losing—to a sinister slasher-type figure as portrayed by Jack Nicholson. That much is fairly obvious. His young son Danny should be portrayed as a hero, fearful though he is. But King also takes issue with the casting of Shelly Duvall, who whines and screeches at her husband in a way that King describes as a misogynistic interpretation. It’s a good point. Other books and movies are discussed as well.

There are too many fascinating margin comments, anecdotes, and explanations to recount here, but the one that has stuck with me over a month after I finished it is the note that King enclosed when he sent The Shining saying not to lose it as this was the only copy. Yikes!

When I saw that Bicks had also included some autobiographical bits, I cringed initially, thinking, oh please don’t make this about you. But the way she handles it is excellent, giving the reader some small insights into the narrator while keeping the focus primarily right where it belongs; it’s done tastefully and professionally. I learned a great deal within a small span of time, and also enjoyed it tremendously.

Highly recommended.

True Crime, by Patricia Cornwell*****

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Legendary mystery writer Patricia Cornwell didn’t intend to write a memoir, but when someone decided to put her life’s story on television, she realized that if she didn’t write it, they’d make it up as they went. What began as a treatment for television writers to use as a guide morphed into a full-length book, and this is a perfect example of what an overachiever Cornwell has become.

My thanks go to NetGalley and Grand Central Publishing for the review copy. This book is for sale now.

Cornwell grew up in Miami, but moved with her mother to Montreat, North Carolina following her parents’ separation when she was five years old. It’s a miracle that anyone whose childhood was so riddled with trauma could grow up and pass for normal, let alone accomplish the things that she has done. First, her father had a breakdown, kidnapped her and her brothers, and then tried to hand them off—permanently—to his law partner. Her mother was a hot mess most of the time, and so there were periods when there was no food prepared, and she and her brothers made do by scrounging raw hamburger out of the freezer and eating it raw! Then there was the time her mom went into a fugue state and began systematically burning all of the children’s clothing—and there was no money to replace it with. Neglected children are often a lightning rod that attracts bad actors, and so the local security cop began molesting her—up until he was caught by her older brother, who put a stop to it. And the list goes on.

Nobody walks away from such experiences unscarred, but since Cornell—who was then Patsy Daniels—was a good kid, she internalized all of it, aided by a dreadful first grade teacher that told her that her constant talking in class was probably why her father had left! (As a teacher, this reviewer wants to find that person and have her license pulled, although she is probably gone from this earth by now.) Patsy gained control of her life—sort of—by developing eating disorders. She was hospitalized, but medical science actually didn’t know what to do about anorexia or bulimia, and after months in the institution with no improvement whatever, she gave up and went home. The problem vanished many years later when other aspects of her life changed.

Her love of writing and her feverish work ethic are what has made her such a success (along with great intelligence, though she doesn’t say as much.) She rode with cops and served as a volunteer in order to gain insights into that world; she went to Quantico and studied profiling; and of course, worked in the medical examiner’s office so that she could legitimately view autopsies, which are of course not open to the public. Anything she needed to learn, she found a way to do, leaving no stone unturned. She was aided and mentored by what seems to me an unlikely cast of friends and surrogate parents, including Senator Orin Hatch, Ruth and Billy Graham (mostly Ruth,) and President H.W. Bush.

The thing I appreciate about this memoir, apart from its outstanding prose and organization, is Cornwell’s willingness to disclose personal information. Sometimes, when someone is deeply private but finds herself writing a memoir anyway, she will stay on the surface and give up as little of herself as possible. Such memoirs are frustrating to read and for those that pay money for the privilege, a bit of a cheat. But once Cornwell decided to do this thing, she really did it right. And while, on the one hand, there’s a certain amount of namedropping and braggadocio, even that aspect of it is interesting; given everything she went through to arrive at the station she’s gained in life, one can hardly begrudge her.

For those that love her books, and also for those that simply enjoy a well written memoir, this book is highly recommended.

Death in Mud Lick, by Eric Eyre*****

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The place is Kermit, West Virginia, population 382. Big pharma dumped millions of opioids here regularly with impunity—until this investigation was complete, anyway—causing deaths by the score. Death in Mud Lick tells how the tiny West Virginia Gazette and its stalwart journalist, Eric Eyre, blew the whistle on this outrageous practice and, in time, held the pharmaceutical firms responsible.

My thanks go to Scribner and NetGalley for the review copy. I’m years late, partially because I knew that this was going to be a grim tale. It’s for sale now, and though it is as grim as I feared, it’s also inspirational.

Kermit had just one pharmacy, but that was all it took. The parking lot was always jammed with cars from out of state; vehicles poured in from South Carolina, Ohio, Kentucky, and Virginia, among others. There was free popcorn for waiting customers, and patrons who picked up prescriptions sometimes strolled out of the shop and went directly to someone else’s car, where they would hand over the bag of pills and collect money. Nobody was held accountable, and in fact, opioids served as a local currency. You could buy gas with opioids; you could use them to tip your waiter. Nobody batted an eye.

Given these statistics, how was it that nobody was ever busted for this? Perhaps it was such an integral part of the local economy that it was accepted; then again, there were real doctors writing these prescriptions, and they were ridiculously easy to get.

Eyre won the Pulitzer for his coverage of this crisis. He continued his investigation even after he received a diagnosis of Parkinson’s disease, though it slowed him down some, inevitably. His narrative reads almost like a thriller, and all of us owe him a great deal. There are still plenty of addicts out there, sadly—you probably know at least one, and I certainly do—but the trajectory has been checked, and it’s all because of the free press.

I highly recommend this book to you. Thanks, Eric.

Charlie and Me, by Mary Neiswender, Kate Neiswender

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Mary Neiswender was the first and primary journalist that the notorious serial killer Charles Manson was willing to talk to. She did so at a time in history in which women in journalism were exceedingly rare, and she put up with a whole lot of crap, first in order to remain in her field, and then later to rise to its pinnacle, receiving a Pulitzer nomination.

My thanks go to the University of Nebraska press and NetGalley. This book is for sale now.

Charles Manson was the leader of a group that called itself “The Family,” almost entirely made up of girls and young women that had nowhere else to go. However, people came and went within it, and so those that spoke of it as a cohesive entity were mistaken. Manson was handsome and charismatic despite his small physical form, and he was convicted of the 1969 Tate-LaBianca murders even though he was almost certainly not present at the time.

Neiswender regarded him as a killer, but also was convinced that he hadn’t had a fair trial. She makes a good case. She delayed writing this book until Manson’s death in prison in 2017, as she had promised to keep much of what he said off the record. Once he died, she considered herself to be freed from that agreement. Neiswender died in March of this year, and her daughter has assisted her in seeing that the book was completed and published.

I don’t read a lot of true crime, but I couldn’t put this book down. Neiswender’s observations and insights are fascinating, and she does a fine job of bringing Manson to life—in a way that the public can appreciate without the physical threat the man represented in person.

Highly recommended.

100 Rules for Living to 100, by Dick Van Dyke****

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Dick Van Dyke was a wonderful part of my childhood, and this lovely audiobook has put a little more bounce in my step. It’s not really about rules, of course, but the format is a perfect scaffold for a combination memoir and self-help book. My thanks go to NetGalley and Grand Central Publishing for the review copy; this book is for sale now.

Van Dyke entered my consciousness when I was a kindergartener, and the original movie Mary Poppins brought droves of families to theaters. I was not the only family member that was entranced, and all of us sang along to the sound track once the record was on our stereo turntable. The movie, and its lead characters, played by Julie Andrews and Van Dyke, glowed with humor and optimism.  What a wonderful message to share, the idea that the best we can give our children is our time and our attention. In the early 1960s, the suggestion that adults ought to listen to children was ahead of its time and much needed.

Many of the anecdotes the author conveys have to do with experiences shared between him and Arlene, his current wife. Despite the May-December romance, it sounds like a wonderful union. He talks about the recent and horrific events with the Santa Ana fires that took the homes of so many—though his own was spared. My favorite parts, though, are the ones in which he discusses the future roles he’d like to play, because he isn’t really retired from the industry. Way to go, Dick!

Reader Tom Bergeron does a nice job, and as a bonus, he sounds quite a bit like the author.

I recommend this little gem to everyone that could use some positive energy, and to all that love the author.

The True Happiness Company, by Veena Dinavahi****-*****

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4.5 stars, rounded upwards. Veena Dinavahi’s experience as a member of a cult called The True Happiness Company is so outrageous that if it were written about as fiction, it would be universally panned as ridiculous and unbelievable. But it isn’t fiction; it’s what happened to her. My thanks go to Random House and NetGalley for the invitation to read and review. This book is available to the public now.

Veena’s parents are immigrants from India who gave everything that they had in order to provide their children with the best opportunities possible. Between their sacrifices and Veena’s high I.Q., she was admitted to a coveted, highly competitive school that also had a horrifyingly high rate of suicides and suicide attempts due to the intense pressure under which its students labored. When Veena became suicidal, her parents turned to professionals for guidance, but one of the so-called professionals they consulted, the most persuasive and charismatic of them all, was a charlatan. With their life savings neatly stashed in his own bank account, this man, who claimed to be a psychologist but was not, diagnosed Veena as having a borderline personality; once she accepted the diagnosis, “Bob” used it to undermine her instincts of self-protection and what seemed to her to be common sense. She couldn’t be trusted to decide anything for herself, because she was crazy. And thus was this young woman brought under the spell of an insidious conman and sexual predator, one who also used her parents’ unfamiliarity with American culture to gain their acceptance of the things to which their daughter was subjected.

Before she knew it, Veena was married to a young man she didn’t know very well, but who was also susceptible to the charms of this snake oil salesman. She married him because the doctor said to; once this was done, Bob became the third element in their marriage. Both of them spoke to him in person or by phone daily, or even multiple times a day. He resolved every dispute, and he forbade them to resolve anything without involving him first. It is a miracle that Veena was able to find the support and resolve she needed in order to extricate herself and her children from the dungeon of despair he created.

I am quite late with this review; the book came out in May, but it is a harsh read, and I took my time with it. Were it fiction, Veena could have inserted moments of levity or joy to relieve the horror, but it isn’t, and there were none. I would have liked for her to break up some of the roughest bits by flashing forward to bits of her life as it is now, but then, it’s not my story to tell. I’m just glad she and her children are safe, and that she can rebuild her life.

Those that enjoy true crime will be interested in this memoir. Highly recommended to those that have interest in cult stories, and that will willingly endure a rough read.

Heartbreaker, by Mike Campbell and Ari Surdoval*****

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Mike Campbell is a musician and songwriter who served as Tom Petty’s lead guitarist and songwriting partner from the band’s inception until Petty’s death in 2017. I’m a sucker for a strong musical memoir when I can find it; although the galley for this book was available, I chose not to request it, instead using an audiobook from Seattle Bibliocommons. I didn’t want the pressure of a deadline. I wanted to be able to lose myself in Campbell’s story, to take unlimited side trips to stream songs that he refers to, either because I haven’t heard of the song and want to listen to it, or because he’s identified a song that I have loved for a long time and want to hear again.

Although I listened to Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers from the late ‘80s onward, I was never one to follow the news about individual band members. In fact, before I read Warren Zanes’ biography of Petty, I didn’t even know who was in the band. I just knew that when I was in the car and I heard Petty’s voice on the radio, it was time to turn up the volume. And so I come to this memoir without any preconceived ideas, and also without a lot of prior knowledge. Sometimes when a luminary dies, people that have only known them peripherally come out of the woodwork with their stories, looking to make some quick money by inflating their own importance in that person’s life. Once I begin listening to Campbell—who narrates his own audiobook—I can see that this is definitely not that.

It’s also not a Tom-and-me kind of memoir. Petty appears in it of course, but this story is about Campbell, not about Petty, and once it gets rolling, I can tell that Campbell has plenty of interesting experiences worth hearing about independent of anyone else.

The audio takes me a little while to get used to. As it begins, I note the delivery that is nearly a monotone, and a less than fluid reading style. In a strange way, it reminds me of being in an elementary school classroom that’s doing round robin reading aloud. We have come to the student that doesn’t want to read aloud because he knows he won’t sound good. And just as I am thinking that surely for a book that has the kind of reach I expect it to have, they could have found a more engaging narrator, the penny drops, and I realize—oooh, this guy is reading his own book! That being the case, I resolve to stop being so picky and accept the author’s narrative style. Eventually I grow accustomed to it, and it’s a good thing, because I find Campbell’s experiences fascinating! What a lot these musicians endured in order to be heard. Hunger, homelessness, and the derision of their elders; broken down cars, unfriendly cops, and shifty bar owners that want the music, but don’t really want to pay for it. And I am so glad they persevered, because the world of rock and roll would have been so much poorer without them.

I strongly recommend this memoir to those that enjoy listening to Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers.

Shattered, by Hanif Kureishi***

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A while back, I read a novel by Hanif Kureishi titled The Last Word.  It was not his most successful book in terms of sales, but I was gob-smacked by his cleverness, and so when I saw that he had a memoir coming out, I felt compelled to read it, even though it was likely going to be sad, since it is, at least in part, a memoir of what it’s like to be almost completely paralyzed.

My thanks go to Harper Collins and NetGalley for the review copy. This book is for sale now.

Kureishi is a seasoned writer and journalist, and as he writes about this horrifying event alternately with the earlier parts of his life, we see happier times as well. I thought it would be a narrative that I would need to take in small bursts because of its tragic nature, but that I would nevertheless appreciate it for its brilliance. What a surprise; I can read about his accident, hospitalization, and the experiences he has as a disabled person without a lot of difficulty, but I am drawn up short by the numerous passages about his sexuality.

You see, I am of the old school that believes that just because a thing is true, that doesn’t necessarily mean that its many details belong in a memoir. For example, sometime during nearly everyone’s life, we have digestive difficulties brought on by a case of the flu or some other thing. Has it happened? Yes. Do we need a detailed description of the writer’s vomit and bowel movements? Perhaps not. And this is the way I feel about his fondness for porn, for explorations of his own sexuality with various partners and all by himself (ew!) and even his fondness for street drugs and booze. Why would I want to read about any of this?

Sadly, Kureishi says that he no longer enjoys reading or writing fiction, and since that is the part of his work that I admire, I think we’re done here.

To be clear, he is a capable wordsmith, and those that are curious about what a disability might be like can get a taste of that here, which is why there are three stars and not fewer. I cringe when I read about his plane flight, with people shoving past him, even as they glance pityingly down at him. But like many Boomers, I have tasted a less extreme aspect of this myself, and so Kureishi’s version of it feels to this reviewer like a busman’s holiday.

This book is recommended to those of his readers that have appreciated his earlier nonfiction work, and to those with an interest in the lives of paraplegics and quadriplegics. For others, there are numerous online reviews that include large excerpts, and I recommend reading those before you invest in this book.