11 Memoirs I Love but Can’t Necessarily Endorse
Lately my favorite genre of books, the genre I can’t seem to get enough of, is memoir. A memoir differs from a classic autobiography in aim and scope. The author of a memoir has more narrative focus than simply telling the details of one’s life, the details that begin where it all began and move toward where it’s at now.
In the introduction to the ten-year anniversary edition to Mary Karr’s best-selling memoir The Liar’s Club, she describes the way memoirs have taken up the mantle that used to belong to novels in telling the experience of people that don’t often have their story told. She believes readers find the “single, intensely personal voice” of memoirs compelling. I know that’s one of the reasons I love a good memoir. She also adds that people are drawn to memoirs because they deal with dysfunctional people and families in ways we often find reassuring. And note how Karr defines a dysfunctional family: “a dysfunctional family is any family with more than one person in it.” Then she adds, “In other words, the boat I can feel so lonely in actually holds us all.”
Below I’ve put a few of the memoirs I have most enjoyed. I listed them alphabetically by the author’s last name. I hope they give you some reading ideas to consider this fall.
As you look at the list, please be aware that just because I put a book on the list, it does not mean I love every aspect of the book, or even most of the book, especially when it comes to foul language and non-Christian worldviews. Sometimes family life gets described with a form that matches dysfunction.
But, alas, I confess, I did love reading them anyway, even as I find them strategic reading. Here’s why: so much of my role as a pastor pushes me to spend more and more of my time, indeed nearly all of my time, with mature Christians. And so, one way I try to keep from becoming utterly insular is by reading broadly. I’ll stand by that practice even when I can’t stand by some of the specific content in these books. These authors represent the sort of cross-section that exists in our world and might, on a random Sunday that’s not random at all, be the sort of people who visit our church. I want to speak intelligently to them about the only hope I know: Jesus.
Open: An Autobiography by Andre Agassi
One-sentence summary: A strikingly vulnerable story told by a man who seemed cocky but—big surprise—had a lot of inner demons.
I couldn’t imagine being this open about my struggles. And I believe the Christian message of the gospel, which tells me that I’m loved even when I was a sinner far from God, and therefore have nothing to hide. Still, to be this open would scare me. I love how Agassi tells us how and why he came to hate the sport that made him famous. Image, as you already know, isn’t everything, despite the camera advertising that used him to say otherwise. I only wish I understood the scoring system in tennis better, so I could have understood those parts of the book better. But if you can’t tell the difference between serving love and straight sets, don’t let that stop you from reading it.
A Walk in the Woods: Rediscovering America on the Appalachian Trail by Bill Brycen
One-sentence summary: two guys who are not fit enough to do something really tough, try anyway—and have a lot of goofy struggles along the way.
Oh man, I laughed and laughed and laughed through this book. This summer I went on a long, four-day hike in the Adirondacks with my oldest daughter and some friends. In preparation for the hike, one of the guys going on the trip told me about this book. I’m glad he did. And I wish, as Brycen writes, I too had “eyes of chipped granite.”
Four Seasons in Rome: On Twins, Insomnia, and the Biggest Funeral in the History of the World by Anthony Doerr
One-sentence summary: a literary writer is given a year to write and think and ponder, and what results is the weaving of a story about the ancient city of Rome with the themes of life and death and the struggle to make meaningful art, all while his own life is both ordinary and hard.
My favorite novelist wrote this book, so he had me at hello. Also, if you’ve read All the Light We Cannot See, you’ll appreciate the backstory to some of the struggles that went into writing that novel, as a discussion of that book pops up here and there in this memoir. Some readers might find this memoir too self-indulgent, but I’m not one of them.
Life & Letters: On Being a Writer, On Being a Christian by Bret Lott
One-sentence summary: a collection of essays that have the overtones of memoir, especially the last half of the book, which links together the death of a father and the love of his son.
I recently read this book and another nonfiction book by Bret Lott about writing (Before We Get Started: A Practical Memoir of the Writer’s Life). I’m not sure why I waited so long to read these two books. I love the plain and conversational tone of the writing that slowly unfolds to reveal just how thoughtful and un-plain the writing is. Lott is a Christian who doesn’t always write to Christian audiences, which makes him a good man to learn from. This book gets a full endorsement.
Greenlights by Matthew McConaughey
One-sentence summary: a Hollywood A-list celebrity, who only sort of fits into Hollywood’s culture, writes about his Texas upbringing and his expansive acting career, all while punctuating the memoir with new-agey-pop-self-help gobbledygook—and doing so with a lot of goofy gusto, I might add. All right, all right, all right.
When I texted a friend about this book, he told me that he had heard it was a “hoot.” Boy, is it ever. I’m a fan of The McConaissance, at least in so much as it produced a movie like Interstellar—but for the record, this is for sure not a book I endorse. My favorite part came when he described his self-appointed physical training to act the role of a dragon slayer.
12 Years a Slave by Solomon Northup
One-sentence summary: terrible, unspeakable evils happened to an educated African American slave.
It was so hard to read this book. We read it in our church book club a few years ago. In the movie adaptation, I remember a good many scenes where the cameras stayed focused for an almost too-intense amount of time, as if to say, “Don’t look away. Keep staring at this evil.” I wouldn’t say the author does this as much, but aspects of the book are sort of like that too. And, in my opinion, we are better for staring despite our desire to look away.
A Promised Land by Barak Obama
One-sentence summary: the most powerful man in the world tells the story of his presidency and how, “despite all the pomp and power,” the presidency is just an ordinary job.
I found this book absolutely fascinating. During the early years of his presidency, so many iconic moments in modern history took place—the economic recovery after 2008, the BP oil spill, and the killing of Osama bin Laden, just to name a few. But if I’m honest, I had my head down and pointed at my feet during his presidency, working hard to raise a family, earn a graduate degree, and love a church, and, therefore, I missed so much of what happened more broadly in US politics during his eight years in office. To give you a “for instance” to illustrate my point, I remember on an early Tuesday morning in November standing in the dark for hours waiting to vote in President Obama’s first presidential election while I tried to study a book about Hebrew grammar because I had a graduate-level Hebrew exam that week. And not only did this book narrate a period of US history I know little about, it often does so from a political perspective I don’t typically share, which is so helpful for having one’s own views sharpened as opposed to having one’s own views merely pampered. This book is only volume 1 of 2, so I’m excited to read the next volume, which will follow his second term in office.
Becoming by Michelle Obama
One-sentence summary: the wife of the most powerful man in the world tells the story of what it’s like to embrace that identity while also seeking to pursue her own—oh, and at the same time, raise two lovely daughters before a watching world.
Michelle Obama’s book came before her husband’s, so I read it first, but as I later read his book, I found myself thinking over and over again that her book makes a wonderful complement to her husband’s book, offering a more domestic look at their very public careers. The book covers her whole life, from her birth and childhood in Chicago, through her years at Princeton and Harvard Law school, and then back to Chicago again, and then to DC and back to Chicago. I only had a small complaint. I didn’t love how, at times, her words seemed to have a slight agenda toward propaganda; although I can’t fault her too much for that because in the moments the book comes across this way, her words are often in the service of praising her husband. How can that be so wrong?
Struck: One Christian’s Reflections on Encountering Death by Russ Ramsey
One-sentence summary: a Christian pastor gets a random infection from a trip to the dentist, and in a very short time, he has to have massive heart surgery, which upends all of life and takes a few years to recover from the trauma.
When I read this book, I went out and bought five more copies to give away to those who are suffering at our church. I heard back from several of those people how much the book put into honest language their pain while pointing them to the hope of the gospel. This book gets a full endorsement.
Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis by J.D. Vance
One-sentence summary: a poor kid from a poverty-stricken part of the country rises out of that mess (and it is a mess) and becomes an Ivy League lawyer while also navigating truckloads of family dysfunction.
An interesting part of this story, which I only noticed during my second reading, is the way different “versions of Christianity” show up in the background. By a version of Christianity, I mainly mean a folksy version and a more fundamental, Pentecostal version. And it seemed to me, especially on the second reading, that Vance actually wrestled with a true version of Christianity mingled with all the rest. The recent movie will give you a sense of his story but not this part.
Educated: A Memoir by Tara Westover
One-sentence summary: a woman grew up in a pseudo-Mormon cult but found a way to get away and become educated.
Perhaps my favorite part of this book is the way the author leaves out editorializing and instead focuses on the strict narrative; she trusts her powerful writing and her powerful story and the thoughtfulness of her readers to pick up what she’s throwing down.
What about you? What are some of your favorite memoirs? Let me know in the comments.
* Photo by Christin Hume on Unsplash