Biographies & Memoirs

Girls and Their Monsters : The Genain Quadruplets and the Making of Madness in America

by Audrey Clare Farley

available in June, hardcover, Little, Brown

In 1954, researchers at the newly formed National Institute of Mental Health set out to study the genetics of schizophrenia. When they got word that four 24-year-old identical quadruplets in Lansing, Michigan, had all been diagnosed with the mental illness, they could hardly believe their ears. Here was incontrovertible proof of hereditary transmission and, thus, a chance to bring international fame to their fledgling institution. The case of the quadruplets, they soon found, was hardly so straightforward. Girls and Their Monsters chronicles the extraordinary lives of the quadruplets and the lead psychologist who studied them, asking questions that speak directly to our times.

George : A Magpie Memoir

by Frieda Hughes

available in June, hardcover, Avid Reader Press

Hughes’ life in the Welsh countryside sounds amazing enough, but the addition of Goerge the magpie makes it magical! I have my own obsession with a particular family of birds—Steller’s Jays—so I easily understood Hughes’ immediate fascination and fondness for a screechy, mischievous, and intelligent bird. Her memoir unfolds lyrically at times and comically at other times. And always with an honest appraisal of the tension between letting a wild thing be wild and passing that barrier into friendship. I finished this one in under a week, I was so focused on finding out what happened not only to Frieda, but mostly to George. –Erin

Owner of a Lonely Heart

by Beth Nguyen

available in July, hardcover, Scribner

At the end of the Vietnam War, when Beth Nguyen was eight months old, she and her father, sister, grandmother, and uncles fled Saigon for America. Beth’s mother stayed—or was left—behind, and they did not meet again until Beth was nineteen. Beth tells a comingof-age story that spans her own Midwestern childhood, her first meeting with her mother, and becoming a parent herself. Vivid and illuminating, Owner of a Lonely Heart is a deeply personal story of family, connection, and belonging: as a daughter, a mother, and as a Vietnamese refugee in America.

Meet Me Tonight in Atlantic City

by Jane Wong

available now, hardcover, Tin House Books

Jane Wong’s writing is ferocious, vulnerable, and deeply tender. These are things that are not necessarily not-related. In fact, Wong illuminates how they are, very much, intertwined. From Chinese American restaurant upbringings, a psychic mother, and Wong’s poetic sensibilities comes a debut memoir that you will want to hold close and share with everyone you love. –Madison

Why Fathers Cry at Night : A Memoir in Love Poems, Recipes, Letters, and Remembrances

by

Kwame Alexander available now, hardcover, Little, Brown Kwame Alexander shares snapshots of a man learning how to love. He takes us through stories of his parents and explores his own relationships—his difficulties as a newly wedded, 22-year-old father, and the precariousness of his early marriage working in a jazz club with his second wife. Alexander attempts to deal with the unravelling of his marriage and the grief of his mother’s recent passing while sharing the solace he found in learning how to perfect her famous fried chicken dish.

Thinning Blood : A Memoir of Family, Myth, and Identity

by Leah Myers

available now, hardcover, W.W. Norton & Co. What a perfect book to read alongside this year’s Whatcom READS, Red Paint. Leah chronicles four generations of women in her family and how they each represent a figure on her personal totem pole. Her critiques of blood quantum rules and questions about her own identity are vulnerable and powerful. –Kiana