On the heels of Asian American Pacific Islander Heritage Month, Gold House launched its second book club list on Tuesday selecting stories that explore identity written by Asian Pacific Islander authors.
A part of the largest nonprofit collective of top Asian and Pacific Islander cultural leaders, the book club list highlights works to emphasize this year’s “Resistance & Resilience” theme.
“Through the selection of books in our second Reading List, we will explore ways in which ‘Resistance and Resilience’ forges Asian American identity, particularly through the lens of grief, oppression, and cultural assimilation,” says Cindy Joung, Gold House’s Gold Records director, in a statement.
“At a time when many Asians and Asian Americans are feeling unsafe, unseen, and unwelcome in this country, the Gold House Book Club seeks to share stories that exemplify our strength, our contributions, and our multifaceted identities,” Cindy says. “Ultimately, we hope these books and our programming will bring the community together for moments of introspection and discussion while highlighting API representation in the literary landscape.”
The list was curated by Gold House’s advisory council of 22 API writers, activists, and professors, including celebrated authors Amy Tan, Helen Zia, and Viet Nguyen.
Songstress Mariah Carey enjoyed debut author success when her long-awaited memoir hit bookshelves last September. But the memoir that dives deep into how she found her voice in what she calls an abusive family environment has led to lawsuits from her siblings.
While promoting The Meaning of Mariah Carey with Oprah Winfrey on an Apple TV+ special last fall, Mariah said after years of therapy she calls Alison her “ex-sister” and Morgan her “ex-brother.” Her so-called former siblings now are suing her in New York Supreme Court over allegedly false and defamatory claims.
News broke this week that Morgan Carey, Mariah’s older brother, filed a lawsuit on March 3 against Mariah, co-author Michaela Angela Davis, Andy Cohen of Bravo fame whose imprint published the book, and Macmillan Publishers that owns Andy Cohen Books. Mariah’s older sister, Alison Carey, also had filed her own lawsuit on Feb. 3 solely against Mariah.
In the memoir, the singer describes several alleged violent interactions with her siblings. From the descriptions, lawsuits were expected, but it begs the question of how a memoirist can write her own story and portray real-life characters the way she interpreted their behavior and personality.
What Are the Allegations?
First, in Alison’s two-page complaint, she is representing herself and asking the court to have her sister pay $1.25 million in damages plus money for legal costs. She has issue with the chapter in Mariah’s memoir called “Dandelion Tea,” which is dedicated to Mariah’s allegedly dangerous experiences with her sister, who she claims tossed boiling hot water on her when she was 12 years old that made her black out and develop third-degree burns.
Alison says she was a troubled preteen, but she blames their mother, Patricia Carey, for allegedly forcing her to “attend terrifying middle-of-the-night satanic worship meetings that included ritual sacrifices and sexual activity.” Alison goes on to write that she has been diagnosed with a series of mental and physical health diseases. She says Mariah “used her status to attack her penniless sister” and “callously dismisses” her as an ex-sister.
Morgan also references in his lawsuit about being called publicly by Mariah as her ex-brother. He claims Mariah falsely depicted him as a “physically violent man.” In his own words, he alleges their father, Alfred Roy Carey, was the abuser and the reason he was placed in a children’s psychiatric center, a revelation Morgan says is an invasion of privacy. He says he believes he was portrayed as a stereotypical violent Black male for Mariah to “play the victim card and curry favor with the Black Lives Matter movement.” As part of the lawsuit, he attached a page of photos from over Mariah’s career of them together appearing happy to dispute his sister’s allegations.
Memory or Mismemory?
Memoirists have to reach for memories and describe those memories and the meaning behind what happened and how it impacted their lives. But as humans our minds may misinterpret an old memory and transform it. That’s a concern that impacts any writer writing their own true story.
“This is because memory is not just about retrieving stored information,” reads a Scientific American article on the unintentional phenomenon of misremembering, or the act of remembering incorrectly. “Our minds normally construct memories using a blend of remembered experiences and knowledge about the world. Our memories can be frazzled, though, by new experiences that end up tangling the past and the present.”
Should a writer discuss what they plan to tell in their story with people who will have a major appearance? It’s a question about how much to reveal about someone and how similar are the memories you share with that someone to ensure the right description makes it into the book. But if you’re not close to that particular someone, then reaching out can get murky. Also, reaching out could mean that someone wants their name and any reference to the event they’re mentioned in to be out of the book, subtracting some of the author’s freedom to express their story.
Your Truth or Their Truth?
Both of Mariah’s siblings say they weren’t contacted by the press for their sides of the story nor were given a copy of the unpublished book to verify any information.
There are memoirs, especially celebrity ones, that share private information about others without substituting names. Actress Demi Moore in her 2019 memoir Inside Out, for example, wrote she had taken actor Jon Cryer’s virginity. This aspect, of course, exploded in the media, but Jon issued a correction on Twitter saying he lost his virginity in high school before meeting Demi.
For Demi, her mismemory was forgiven though it involved sexual information that’s usually preferred to remain private.
Mariah hints at the alleged situation with her family in “Petals” off her 1999 Rainbow album.
Who Will Win?
When the lawsuits spill in claiming false and defamatory statements after a memoir is published, it’s hard to say how the court battle will go down. Most lawsuits head toward settlement as in we may never hear the result of the settlement if Mariah and her siblings believe that’s the best route to resolution.
In 2003, Augusten Burroughs published his memoir, Running with Scissors, that mentioned his time living with a family that he gave a fictional name. In the family’s chapter, he recounts abuse, drug use, and overall dysfunction. The real family filed a defamation and invasion of privacy lawsuit against the author and his publisher St. Martin’s Press. The author argued his memories were as accurate as he remembered, therefore what he wrote was true. The $2 million lawsuit settled outside of court with the author saying in his apology that the family’s memories were “different from my own,” The New York Times reported in 2007. The memoir became a movie starring Alec Baldwin and Annette Bening.
Mariah told The Hollywood Reporter in December amid her Apple TV+ Christmas special that she’s in talks to adapt her memoir for the screen. This is before the lawsuits were filed that may or may not impact any future projects, especially around the division of profits if that becomes part of the probable settlements.
If you are working on a memoir and worried about your memories sparking lawsuits, here are some resources to check out:
*Reviewed by a dedicated member of the Lambily who has waited for this story for three decades*
The Meaning of Mariah Carey by Mariah Carey is an in-depth celebrity memoir that highlights the intersection of racial and familial trauma and how the world-famous songstress converted the pain into laser focus on talent exploration and superstardom success.
Mariah clarifies that this is her story from her perspective as she describes her family in the negative light that she viewed them. The story starts with Mariah’s childhood that hints at trauma described in many of her songs from “Outside” on the Butterfly album to “Petals” on the Rainbow album. The youngest of three children, Mariah is years apart from her teenage brother Morgan and sister Allison, who were both already showing signs of psychological damage from growing up in an interracial family in the 1960s and 1970s in New York City. Mariah also has the fairest complexion that makes her a target of sibling abuse ranging from her brother exhibiting violence to the point where cops are called to her sister pimping her out to a grown man. Race plays a huge part with her Black father and White mother and seeps into her upbringing as she lives with her mother in a White section of Long Island and visits her father in Black Harlem. The location forces Mariah to attend predominantly White schools where she’s called racial slurs on an everyday basis for being Black. Then when she hangs out with her father and her Black cousins on the weekend she feels her complexion comes up in the question of her paternity. One of the issues that bothers little Mariah the most is that her mother never could wrangle her curls. The untidiness of her appearance brings self-esteem down even more until her opera singer mother trains her to sing, and music becomes Mariah’s saving grace.
A major portion of the book covers a few chapters on her tumultuous marriage to Sony Music executive Tommy Mottola, who discovered her and became her first husband. Mariah goes into detail about how what looks like a storybook fairy tale romance is slow torture to her twentysomething self. She even calls the mansion in upstate New York she shared with Tommy “Sing Sing” like the infamous prison. Metaphorically, she describes the luxurious baths she would take as washing off the Mariah Carey persona to become an unhappy housewife. The mental abuse is more described here with what Mariah calls Tommy’s incessant anger that was shown to her all the time and visible to others in his inner circle.
There are explanations for some of her obsessions that have been magnified in the media to make her seem frivolous. For example, she connects with her idol Marilyn Monroe after seeing her in film as a young girl and learning little Norma Jeane Mortenson also had a tumultuous childhood. Mariah is “eternally twelve” because the physical and emotional abuse hit a fever pitch at that age where she wishes she could be a regular kid.
Like Mariah said on her book tour, what she says is unimportant is not in the book from the highly publicized engagement and breakup with Aussie billionaire James Packer to the highly publicized stint and battle on American Idol with rapper Nicki Minaj. She also brilliantly throws shade at other highly publicized events from her career to show the media monster she’s over it. And shade is hinted toward Jennifer Lopez, who Mariah claims she does not know, and now we know the subtle beef started way before the meme.
Overall, this is an extraordinary celebrity memoir by Mariah, along with her co-writer and Black cultural writer Michaela Angela Davis, that emphasizes her biracial identity and how that impacted her family and her drive. Because of the depth, it’s recommended to read the actual book though the audiobook is also an excellent choice due to the amount of well-known lyrics within the chapters. There is a lot of digging deep into the construct of race and how it could destroy individuals with Mariah describing her journey of working to overcome the obstacles placed in her path.
More Myself by Alicia Keys is a memoir by an artist whose wins seem to dominate the losses, making the book less relatable, but she tells her story of striving to lead an inspiring life.
Alicia starts her story of being a girl in a cab with her mother and seeing a sex worker outside in the wintertime. She asks her mother about the woman standing on the corner, and the way her mother answers her question plants a seed for her to remember to work hard for her dreams to come true. She then takes us through her childhood in 1980s and 1990s Hell’s Kitchen in New York City, near Times Square and the theater district. It’s not the neighborhood it is now but one that was riddled with crime where she lived with her single mother, a former actress. She talks about her strained relationship with her father, who she sees seldomly throughout her childhood as he starts another family. As she navigates adolescence in New York City, she’s working on her music with her older music producer boyfriend Kerry “Krucial” Brothers. She lies about her age to him several times as their romantic and career-defining relationship grows. Then she’s offered a record deal simultaneously as an acceptance to Columbia University. She learns quickly she can’t juggle college and music, so she drops school and dedicates herself to become a full-fledged artist. Once her debut album Songs in A Minor drops in 2001, she solidifies her music superstardom.
Actually listening to Alicia’s voice on audiobook brought the story alive, though her hardships seem little compared to her success. For years, she tends to talk about her life in rough New York City with her single mother, but with her piano and singing skills, she’s signed to her first record deal at 15-years-old. That already puts her above the average upbringing in that same scenario. Unlike Jessica Simpson’s Open Book where that singer describes hardships before and throughout her career, Alicia’s story fails to come off as relatable to the average reader. It does leave that awe-inspiring glow of “if you stick to your dreams, then your dreams come true,” which we all know does not add up for most people. Alicia’s chapters open up with words from her husband Swizz Beatz, Jay-Z, Clive Davis, Oprah Winfrey, Michelle Obama, and America Ferrera. Also as well as her father and her ex Krucial, both relationships she has repaired to the point they’re willing to contribute vocal notes to her audiobook. Again, not the most relatable move but could be seen as inspiring. Don’t we all want to repair past relationships so when those people are mentioned in our memoirs they get a say? Maybe, maybe not.
Overall, it’s a positive, not-as-moving portrait of a famous singer who sings on the audiobook at times with her voice really illustrating her story in a more entertaining way.
Mariah Carey is the latest singer to tell her life story in a book that will be formatted into an audiobook she narrates. With singers using their actual voices in their memoirs, the audiobook has become the best format in this booming genre.
Last week, the five-octave diva revealed the title of her memoir, The Meaning of Mariah Carey. The book will be coming out via Henry Holt & Company’s Andy Cohen Books in the U.S., Pan Macmillan in the U.K., and Audible. The release date is Sept. 29 with Michaela Angela Davis, a well-known Black culture insider, as the co-writer.
The next day, as fans chimed on social media about the fate of an audiobook, Mariah confirmed her memoir will be in an audio format, linking to the Audible pre-order page. On Friday, in celebration of the 30th year of her career, she released a new album featuring one of her first concerts at the Tatou Club in New York during her 1990 debut.
Between new music and the audiobook, songstress memoirs are more entertaining to read, as evidenced by Jessica Simpson and Alicia Keys, the other major female artists who also released memoirs this year.
In Harper Collins’ Open Book, Jessica’s voice not only breaks with emotion at the emotional parts, but it also includes six new songs she wrote while writing the book. Her new music is still not available on streaming services as an exclusive for audiobook readers.
More Myself from Macmillan Audio has Alicia expressly telling her story with every chapter guest-starring family and friends from her mother, husband Swizz Beatz, and even ex-boyfriend and collaborator Kerry “Krucial” Brothers Jr. with of course Oprah Winfrey, Michelle Obama and Jay-Z. She also has spurts of singing to describe how albums or singles came together.
Jessica and Alicia have been promoting their books the best way they can amid the COVID-19 pandemic, but with cases rising in many states, even Mariah may have to deal with the same fate of not meeting fans in public who want their books signed, or their audiobook covers.
Open Book by Jessica Simpson is a poignant memoir where she describes her successes and failures in a relatable way.
Once a part of the line of the teen pop machines introduced in the late 1990s, Jessica Simpson stood out with her debut ballad “I Wanna Love You Forever” getting the attention of divas from Whitney Houston to Celine Dion at a time when that type of powerhouse voice was disappearing from airplay. Growing up with a pastor father in a Baptist family, Jessica moves all over Texas, even with a stint in Colorado, where her father presides over multiple churches. They finally settle down in Richardson, Texas, and her big voice gets attention. She even tried out for the Mickey Mouse Club with her future industry friends: Britney Spears, Justin Timberlake, Ryan Gosling, and Christina Aguilera. She bombs the final audition even though Disney had sent her to acting school with Chuck Norris with her acting partner being the actor who embodied Barney, the purple dinosaur. That’s just one of the fun celebrity connections. She eventually finds fame when she signs with Columbia Records and gets a voice teacher who tells her she reminds industry folks of another young Texan songstress—Beyoncé Knowles.
She talks about her marriage with fellow pop star Nick Lachey and feeling the doubt before the walk down the aisle. In her early twenties haze, she learns she wanted to be a wife before she was ready and imagined herself like her mother and grandmother before her marrying at a young age. And she was a virgin, which exploded in the media more than she thought it would be. Once her marriage falls apart, she finds herself involved in an emotional affair with Johnny Knoxville, her The Dukes of Hazzard co-star. That’s the start of her love life coming under a microscope, most likely dating back to her days of simply stating she was a virgin and the media following her every love misstep.
One of the greater touching elements is the dedication to her cousin Sarah, who died at eighteen the summer before college in a freak accident. This defines Jessica’s life with her motivating to start a prayer journal because Sarah had one, and Jessica learns her name was under every date; her cousin was always praying for her. Jessica didn’t know she had all those prayers on her, especially after she deals with being molested by the daughter of a family friend. This haunts her later when she confides in the wrong person.
Along with her faith, Jessica is candid about her body perception issues, alcohol abuse, and how she still lost her way after making the comeback of helming a billion-dollar eponymous fashion brand and starting the family of her dreams. It shows her humanness that seems to be forgotten in the coverage of celebrities and their real problems.
Overall, the elements of her story are relatable, and she works at telling her story that way with her celebrity status. She sees her mistakes and understands how hard they were to overcome. On audiobook, her voice is flawless, breaking with emotion when it needs to and joking with the fun parts. At the end of the audiobook, there are six original songs that relate to her journey of writing down her story. It’s one of those more memorable celebrity memoirs because she strives to engage with her fans on a human level.
Minor Feelings by Cathy Park Hong is an essay collection from a Korean-American writer who feels her voice, as well as the voices from other Asian Americans mostly women, hasn’t been fully understood on purpose.
The author describes “minor feelings” as the feelings nonwhite people develop about their own cultures based on the stereotypes they see in America and believing those stereotypes. She uses life experiences to convey those feelings, and the not-so-minor impact, that she had to rework and create her own philosophies about race and ethnicity in America.
Growing up in Los Angeles first in the Koreatown section, she discusses going to school where the Asian girls seemed to adopt the Latina and Black teenage girl culture they saw in the media and other times when she wrestled with how Asian identity was depicted in the mainstream. Her experience, for example, with the Los Angeles 1992 uprising barely exists since her family already moved out of Koreatown at the time, living the suburban American dream. From what she saw in the media, she said she felt torn knowing the Black community endured racism from the Korean shop owners in the area and those same shop owners becoming targets for destruction during the uprising.
Another story that stands out and runs long in the book surrounds Theresa Hak Kyung Cha, a Korean-American writer and artist who was murdered in 1982. The author describes learning about Theresa and her most famous work, Dictée. But the author worries that Theresa’s life being cut short at 31 after a man rapes and murders her in New York City overwhelmed her potential future. The author also describes the frustration that Theresa’s murder failed to gain much attention in the media as Theresa is just known as an “Oriental” woman and what happened to her fades. She goes into additional detail with describing the court case that wasn’t covered much in the media and interviewing Theresa’s brothers and friends for more insight into keeping her legacy alive.
Overall, the essay collection is informative. What she chooses to focus on is interesting and thought-provoking though some parts are more memorable than others.
Know My Name by Chanel Miller is a poignant memoir about a sexual assault survivor whose case gains enormous media attention as she struggles to find her voice amid the noise.
Chanel is known as Emily Doe in what becomes known as the Stanford Rape Case. At a Stanford University frat party in January 2015, Chanel is found unconscious half-naked outside by a dumpster being assaulted by Brock Turner, a star swimmer at the university. Chanel, at the time, is a recent graduate of University of California Santa Barbara who had decided to join her younger sister and friends at the frat party. But they get separated, and Chanel blacks out. She isn’t the perfect victim. She becomes too drunk to the point she passes out. She already graduated from another college, a lower-level one. She has a boyfriend. She lives in Palo Alto, miles away. This plagues her case throughout as she notices Brock’s golden white boy status as an Olympic-bound swimmer trumps what happens to her, who she is.
She narrates the hardship of being raped and not remembering the act. Her details of how she is found and realizing the number of men who had seen her in that position haunts her. As a student at UCSB during the infamous 2014 Isla Vista rampage where a mass murderer blamed his actions on girls who wouldn’t have sex with him, Chanel brings this memory up sometimes along with the fear of being punished by men for not letting them use her body as they like. During the trial, she sees Brock being believed more than her because of her unconsciousness at the party, her non-star status. Brock says Chanel enjoyed the penetration, the dry humping, the breast fondling so much she had an orgasm. His words over hers, his character witnesses’ words over hers follow her around as she tries to find peace in the yearslong case, even running to Rhode Island for an academic program and Pennsylvania to stay with her Wharton-bound boyfriend.
In the beginning, she mentions how she misspelled “subpoena” in a court document and that people judged her for it. But she is honest about not quite understanding the intricacies of the legal system and ultimately how she sees the system not being on her side. One important factor that becomes a theme is how she is defined as a white female in court. She’s half-Chinese. When this book came out, readers were surprised about her being Asian because the amount of support she received may have been determined by her whiteness alone. She shares how her mother is a well-known Chinese author and living within her Chinese culture in California.
Overall, the memoir introduces us to Chanel as she describes her journey to accept what happens to her post-trauma and how to use it as a force of positivity to help others going through a similar ordeal.
Trailblazer: A Pioneering Journalist’s Fight to Make the Media Look More Like America by Dorothy Butler Gilliam is a fascinating memoir of the first African American woman reporter at the Washington Post. Though parts of her story fall into history retelling, she still refocuses on her life and what she’s learned from her journalism career especially supporting diversity and inclusion in the field.
Born in 1936, Dorothy overcame poverty and racism in Louisville, Kentucky to win a scholarship at a Catholic women’s college and study to become a journalist. She eventually goes on to Columbia University for her master’s degree in journalism. Her first gig is at the black newspaper in Memphis where she covers the Little Rock Nine, the nine black children who integrated a high school in Little Rock, Arkansas in 1957. Her second gig is at the illustrious Washington Post, an opportunity she earns after taking a trip throughout Africa and reporting there. This puts her at the center of the civil rights movement. Later in the 1990s, she covers Nelson Mandela’s U.S. visit during his historic presidency to black women reacting to the cinematic success of Waiting to Exhale. She also serves as the president of the National Association of Black Journalists, the largest trade organization for journalists of color.
The best parts of her memoir is focusing on her contributions and her family. Her book tends to lean in to adding so much research and history almost from a perspective that she didn’t experience it as if she’s just taking it from historical records. The most details she gives about herself is when she talks about her upbringing with losing her father at a young age and becoming an obese teen to getting married and starting a family while starting a career without role models who look like her.
Overall, it’s a good memoir about a trailblazing black female journalist who wants to use her legacy to diversify the mostly white male industry. Companion to the book, the 83-year-old journalist now is active on Twitter saluting other lesser-known trailblazing black female journalists and praising current ones trying to pave their own paths.
JIMMY KIMMEL LIVE! Ð ÒJimmy Kimmel Live!Ó airs every weeknight at 11:35 p.m. EST and features a diverse lineup of guests that include celebrities, athletes, musical acts, comedians and human interest subjects, along with comedy bits and a house band. The guests for Wednesday, January 29, included Jessica Simpson (ÒOpen BookÓ), Lakeith Stanfield (ÒThe PhotographÓ), and musical guest Orville Peck. (ABC/Randy Holmes)
JESSICA SIMPSON
2020 is looking to be a momentous year for three divas who’ve grown into multihyphenates. After pursuing extraordinary careers with the media capturing the highlights and lowlights, the singers plan to tell their stories, from rocky childhood moments to failed romantic relationships.
Jessica Simpson
The 2000s teenage pop star turned fashion designer has written her memoir, Open Book. According to her book’s official page, she had originally been approached to write a motivational guidebook but felt like she would be lying to her fans.
“I promise to be totally honest with you, so you can feel safe to be honest with yourself, too,” Jessica says in a HarperCollins Publishers promo video for the book.
With the book going on sale last week, the press has focused on the newsmaking details such as Jessica surviving child sex abuse; having an emotional affair with Johnny Knoxville while married to 98 Degrees frontman Nick Lachey; and developing a yearslong diet pill addiction after Tommy Mottola, former Sony Music CEO and Mariah Carey’s ex-husband (see below for her pending memoir), told her to lose 15 pounds when she was 17 years old.
Music note: Jessica’s best album, 2003’s In This Skin, was written while she was in the throes of love with Nick Lachey. It produced some of her best hits: “With You,” “Sweetest Sin,” and the cover of Robbie Williams’ “Angels.” Unreleased gems include “Everyday See You” and “Be.”
Alicia Keys
Fresh off from hosting the Grammy Awards, Alicia plans to soon debut her memoir, More Myself: A Journey. Macmillan Publishers says in the book’s synopsis that Alicia will detail her experiences such as the “challenging and complex relationship with her father, the people-pleasing nature that characterized her early career, the loss of privacy surrounding her romantic relationships, and the oppressive expectations of female perfection.”
The book, co-written by celebrity memoir collaboratorMichelle Burford, is under Macmillan’s imprints Flatiron Books and An Oprah Book from Oprah Winfrey. The press around Alicia’s memoir hasn’t started yet for its March 31 release, but it may be due to Flatiron and Macmillan dealing with the firestorm of their literary partner Oprah choosing their best-selling debut novel American Dirt as her book club pick. That book has been criticized for perpetuating stereotypes about Mexico and Mexicans.
Music note: The Diary of Alicia Keys solidified Alicia’s budding career in 2002 after her debut hit, “Fallin’.” This album produced even more hits such as “You Don’t Know My Name,” “Karma,” and the reality TV audition favorite, “If I Ain’t Got You.” Unreleased gems include “Diary” and “If I Was Your Woman.”
Mariah Carey debuts the “mixed-ish” theme song to partygoers in September 2019. (ABC/Image Group LA)
Mariah Carey
Mariah’s highly anticipated memoir will be released under Andy Cohen Books, the Henry Holt and Company imprint by the eponymous Bravo personality.
The singer, who just attained her 19th No. 1 hit with holiday classic “All I Want For Christmas Is With You,” has not revealed a name for her memoir.
“I did not feel like I was being treated the same as some male artists when I was coming out with my first album,” she told Variety in October. Though she didn’t add details about the industry misogyny from her interview, Mariah may save it for her memoir, along with her tumultuous marriage to Tommy Mottola and her relationship with her estranged father while growing up biracial in New York in the 1970s and 1980s.
Music note: Mariah Carey’s eponymous album from 1990 launched her unbelievable career with her first single, “Vision of Love,” hitting No. 1. It is rumored the title of this song may be the title of her memoir. Other No. 1 hits on this album are “I Don’t Wanna Cry”, “Love Takes Time,” and “Someday.” Unreleased gems include the rest of the album.
“At times funny and at times somber, I couldn’t stop turning the pages, waiting to learn more about Marisol and Ramón’s intertwined past and present,” singer and literary influencer Amerie wrote in an Instagram post, adding that the author will join her for the end-of-the-month live chat.
BELLETRIST BOOK CLUB
Creatures by Crissy Van Meter
“On the eve of Evangeline’s wedding, on the shore of Winter Island, a dead whale is trapped in the harbor, the groom may be lost at sea, and Evie’s mostly absent mother has shown up out of the blue,” the book club co-founded by actress Emma Roberts posted on Instagram. “We can’t wait for you to read along!”
GMA BOOK CLUB
Long Bright River by Liz Moore
“‘Long Bright River’ is at once heart-pounding and heart-wrenching: a gripping suspense novel that is also a moving story of sisters, addiction, and the formidable ties that persist between place, family, and fate,” Good Morning America posted in its latest book announcement.
NONAME’S BOOK CLUB
Die Nigger Die! by H. Rap Brown
Sabrina & Corina: Stories by Kali Fajardo-Anstine
The book club serving readers of color founded by rapper Noname announced on Twitter Noname chose Sabrina & Corina and the book club’s “homie pick” of Die Nigger Die! came from journalist Najma Sharif. The books can be found in the club’s partner bookstores or libraries.
OPRAH’S BOOK CLUB
The book club is finishing its December book, Olive, Again by Elizabeth Strout.
READ WITH JENNA – TODAY SHOW BOOK CLUB
Dear Edward by Ann Napolitano
“I choose ‘Dear Edward’ because it is a book about love and loss and finding your way after the unthinkable,” said Jenna Bush Hager on Today. “I thought to start our year off, even though hopefully nothing this dramatic happens in everyone’s life, we can all think about a new lease on life.”
REESE’S BOOK CLUB
Such a Fun Age by Kiley Reid
“You’ll follow a young women’s journey of self-discovery after she’s wrongfully accused of kidnapping a child,” Reese Witherspoon and her book club wrote in Instagram posts. “This story is a beautiful conversation starter about race, privilege, work dynamics.”
“A Song For You” by Robyn Crawford is an honest memoir about the friend of pop superstar Whitney Houston who felt like she had to be quiet in the past out of respect and privacy, but she decides her side of the story is valuable.
Robyn tells her story. There has been backlash about Robyn, who became a backdropped friend of Whitney, due to the media overemphasizing their alleged romantic ties to Whitney’s family publicly showing disdain for Robyn and her relationship with Whitney. With Whitney being gone now seven years, it may seem like poor taste that Robyn wrote a book on her friendship with Whitney, but it’s more about her years working in Whitney’s camp, trying to protect her friend at every corner, but also losing herself in someone else’s dream and rediscovering her purpose.
The story starts with how Robyn meets Whitney at summer camp in New Jersey. She says Whitney introduces herself as a singer and is already a teen model. They begin to hang out a lot as Whitney soon becomes discovered as a singer, signing with Clive Davis at Arista Records. Robyn, who’s a college basketball standout, is thrust into the music industry, but the rumors of her and Whitney having a romance start early. Years go by as Robyn stays beside Whitney to make sure her business interests are met, but at home her brother and mother are diagnosed with AIDS while her sister is diagnosed with bipolar disorder. Robyn describes her interactions with Whitney’s husband Bobby Brown and other family members as unpleasant. Whitney’s marriage and drug addiction soon builds a rift between Whitney and Robyn, and in 1999 Robyn leaves Arista and the music industry behind. How Robyn’s life unfolds as she tries to find what she wants to do and what makes her happy as she approaches forty is intriguing.
Overall, as a memoir of a person who is known for being in the shadow of a superstar, Robyn does a great job of focusing the story on herself and describing what she had witnessed. This is not always the case for similar memoirs like Jessica Harris’ My Soul Looks Back, where that author gets lost in focusing on the famous people instead of herself. Robyn feeling comfortable to tell her side of the story is commendable, as she says she wasn’t interested for years until she felt Whitney’s legacy was marred by drug addiction and molestation rumors despite her extraordinary talent. Robyn’s book is more to support Whitney’s legacy while the author exhibits her right to tell her own story.
In fact, there is a strength, a power even, in understanding brokenness, because embracing our brokenness creates a need and desire for mercy, and perhaps a corresponding need to show mercy. When you experience mercy, you learn things that are hard to learn otherwise. You see things you can’t otherwise see; you hear things you can’t otherwise hear. You begin to recognize the humanity that resides in each of us.
“Just Mercy” is civil rights lawyer Bryan Stevenson’s memoir on his dedication to justice through his legal nonprofit, Equal Justice Initiative or EJI. He writes about the hardship of mostly representing low-income individuals of color in punishment-heavy states who have committed low-level crimes or were wrongly accused of high-level crimes and received death or lifelong imprisonment sentences. He dives into his story but simultaneously focuses on the stories of his clients that reflect the way a legal system will move forward on injustice because of corruption and the lack of resources.
Bryan is fresh out of Harvard Law School in 1983 when he decides to head to Alabama for an internship. There, he eventually meets Walter McMillian, who is sitting on death row for a murder of a young white female clerk. He swears he did not commit the murder and even has countless people to support his alibi. Bryan works feverishly to expose the mistakes that led to Walter’s arrest and imprisonment, and while doing this, his popularity among others suffering a similar fate as Walter is building. He establishes his nonprofit and hires more lawyers and legal staff to help him in numerous cases. Throughout the book, he tells the stories of the people behind bars he helps in several states, but Walter’s story is the one that resonates the entire time.
The book is packed with easily digestible information with weaving in true-life stories that almost seem unbelievable by the way the people had been thrown in prison and even given harsh sentences over crimes they had committed as a juvenile or had not committed at all. The EJI is against the death penalty because many of its clients had been wrongfully imprisoned or had severe mental illness issues that contributed to their crimes. It believes in the notion that many others in the same predicament have yet to see justice. The topic is controversial, but Bryan justifies his point with integrating the socioeconomic and medical backgrounds of his clients on top of the nation’s history that played a role in the oversized prison community and the state and federal players at work to pack prisons for profit. He also adds the voices of some people he’s met over the years who were connected to victims and how they seldom feel satisfied with the death penalty.
Overall, the book melds autobiography with criminal justice history well and lays out a system where failures have ruined lives.
I share this with people often. I give them the suggestion: Allow yourself morning. I tell them it means that today may have been a rolling ball of anxiety and trembling, a face wet and slick with tears, but if you could get to morning, if you could allow yourself a new day to encourage a change, then you can get through it. Allow yourself morning.
“I’m Telling the Truth, But I’m Lying” by Bassey Ikpi is a poetically written collection of essays reflecting the author’s yearslong struggle with mental illness. It has an attention-keeping rhythm as it tells the story of the author’s life from childhood in Nigeria to childhood in the United States to adulthood marred by mood swings that lead to a diagnosis of bipolar disorder.
Bassey’s journey starts in Nigeria with her family, but one of her early memories of not being able to point out her father in a room of people marks more similar moments in the book where she feels something is off but can’t place what that is. One of the moments that sticks out in her American childhood is when she’s watching the Challenger blast off then explode in 1986 with the first teacher astronaut, a well-known national tragedy. She’s shaken and remains shaken that life could be snatched immediately and, she like many other children during that time, didn’t know why she was witnessing such a catastrophe. But she also knows it bothers her more than other children. Her adulthood in New York City has moments of not wanting to deal with people and not understanding why as if she makes a living as a traveling poet. She eventually receives a diagnosis of bipolar disorder, also known as manic depression. There’s a longtime hospital visit. There’s a setback then another. There’s always the desire to be “normal,” where mental illness doesn’t subtract her from living her life the way she wants to.
How she tells her personal story is striking as other people fade in the background but play a role simultaneously. It’s an issue I’ve noticed in memoirs, where writers tell their stories by mentioning major and minor characters but emphasize the pain those characters planted onto their lives. It becomes obvious that not only forgiveness hangs in the balance but also the realization that this person you mentioned doesn’t care or even remembers you or what they did to you. In my opinion, this takes away from memoirists’ stories, but Bassey makes sure to let the reader know she’s the main character, and she takes responsibility for the journey of understanding her brain chemistry and that she will sometimes have things under control and sometimes they’ll be out of her control and that’s just how it is for her.
This book is recommended for anyone interested in learning more about mental illness or living with mental illness. I listened to the audiobook with Bassey narrating her story. Overall, the story is relatable about how to conquer the obstacles that come with life and trying to be better at seeing them for what they are and reacting the way you should.
Reese Witherspoon with "From Scratch" by Tembi Locke. Her production company, Hello Sunshine, will make the memoir into a Netflix limited series / Instagram
Actress Tembi Locke shared via Instagram that her best-selling memoir, From Scratch, will come to Netflix as a limited series with help from the queen of bringing books to the screen, Reese Witherspoon, and her production company Hello Sunshine.
In an Instagram post in which she shared the Variety article as the exclusive, Tembi also noted that she will be working with her sister, award-winning mystery novelist Attica Locke, who has earned TV producing credits in Netflix’s When They See Us and Fox’s Empire as well as the other major bookish Hello Sunshine project in the works, Little Fires Everywhere based on Celeste Ng’s best-selling novel. Tembi added she and Attica will be working alongside the series’ star, Zoe Saldana, and Zoe’s sisters.
Zoe will play Tembi’s role in the book that follows Tembi from her college semester abroad in Italy where she meets her future Sicilian husband Saro, their lives as a married couple in Los Angeles building their careers, and then Saro’s cancer diagnosis which leads to his untimely death and a reawakening for Tembi and her daughter trying to find purpose amid the loss. Read the she lit book review.
Mariah Carey constantly touted her memoir in an in-depth interview with Variety as the entertainment publication honored the songstress in its Power of Women edition.
When asked about the events that had led up to her 2001 “emotional and physical breakdown” coinciding with poor reviews of her debut film Glitter and her inherent love for Christmas that spawned a forever holiday hit and album, Mariah said: “All of this to be revealed in the book, by the way, which I’m obsessed with writing right now. It’s so cathartic.”
With the special edition focused on women, Mariah discussed the role of women in her career, especially in the beginning where she felt there weren’t enough young female artists like her as she was surrounded by a lot of men in the music industry. To stay on top of the ambitious career of her dreams, she said she learned how to play the game.
“It’s sad that we’re still playing games at this point,” she said in the video interview. She then hinted at sexual harassment and the current #MeToo landscape. “And as a woman, yeah, I’ve been in situations where I’m looking at stuff now going, ‘Omigod, this happened to me, that happened to me.’ I totally relate to this woman’s experience, but I didn’t necessarily go along with it in a complete way, but I was like, ‘Oh, this person just like tried to have a moment with me’—without being too specific—in the studio, in the dark. Thank God, I was like, ‘Ha ha ha ha,’ and laughed my way out of it. That’s just my mechanism that I turn on. So these things have happened to me, yeah, but I really respect the women who have come forward and paved the way, so that the newer generation of women don’t have to deal with this and know they don’t have to deal with it.”
She said she felt isolated coming up in the industry, where her eponymous album came out in 1990 when she was 20 years old. Now, with more female artists in the game across the age spectrum, she said she finds ways to work with them.
“I love writing with other women, and it’s something that’s newer thing for me. People like Bibi Bourelly and Priscilla Renea, like new young writers I really enjoy working with because it’s a different energy and they may or may not have been inspired by me, and I thrive on it. Even some of my favorite songs on Butterfly, which is one of my favorite albums and it represents coming into a new era in my life and finding my own freedom as a woman. I remember one of the sessions was with Missy Elliott. We just had the best time working together and writing together.”
Mariah also goes into how the media compared her with Whitney Houston.
“What has to change in our industry the most is the pitting of women against each other. There was the situation when I started, ‘Oh, her and Whitney. Let’s put them against each other’ and blah blah. We didn’t know each other, and she was one of the greatest of all time. Then we finally did a duet together that won an Oscar. We had the best time working together. It was female camaraderie. We both got it. We’re both like, ‘She doesn’t hate me.’ We’re actually having this great time together and laughing. And this is the most fun I have ever had working alone ever. I think camaraderie with women you respect is a huge deal.”
The Mixed-ish theme singer and songwriter said her book will begin with her humble beginnings as a biracial child in New York and follow the highs and lows of her record-breaking career. Explaining she had recently extended her memoir, Mariah said to look for it in the latter half of 2020.
A week after top young adult authors announced their intentions to release journals to partner with their books, former First Lady Michelle Obama also has the same plans for her best-selling 2018 memoir, Becoming.
Becoming: A Guided Journal for Discovering Your Voice will have over 150 inspiring questions and quotes that resonate with her memoir to help readers reflect on “their personal and family history, their goals, challenges, and dreams, what moves them and brings them hope, and what future they imagine for themselves and their community,” according to the Monday press release from publisher Penguin Random House.
The book will be published on its imprint Clarkson Potter, which unveiled part of the introduction:
“I hope you’ll use this journal to write down your experiences, thoughts, and feelings, in all their imperfections, and without judgment…. We don’t have to remember everything. But everything we remember has value.”
Coming out Nov. 19, it will make a perfect fall holiday book gift, like her memoir last year that sold 11.5 million units in print, digital, and audio formats so far, with 7.5 million of those units being sold in the U.S. and Canada alone. It’s been published in 45 languages.
Starting off with 500,000 copies, the journal will be on sale first in the U.S. and Canada with a Spanish language edition, then expand to more than 20 countries.
Becoming was the last book on Oprah’s Book Club list before its Apple revamp.
“From Scratch” is a beautifully written memoir showing the elements of grief when dealing with the loss of a spouse while nurturing the delicate relationships with that spouse’s homeland, culture, and family.
Tembi is studying abroad in Italy when she meets Sicilian native Saro after he tries to help her get her stolen bike back. There’s instant chemistry between them. Tembi, who returns to the U.S. to finish her studies, keeps a long-distance relationship with Saro, who’s in his 30s and ready to become a chef. They convene in New York City later where they marry as Tembi builds up her acting career on Broadway. Her career then takes her away from the stage to the silver screen in Hollywood. Saro follows and begins his culinary career in Los Angeles. They’re living an ideal life until they want children. Biologically, they are having trouble conceiving, so they soon adopt Zoela. During the adoption decision, they learn Saro has liver cancer. Though he’s in and out of remission for years, he succumbs to the disease when Zoela is 7 years old. The overwhelming loss hits Tembi as she has to deal with matters such as distributing Saro’s ashes – some interred in LA and the rest she takes to Sicily. Saro’s parents never approved of their son marrying an American black woman, so in Siciliy Tembi is also still in relationship-building mode with her in-laws with her young daughter in tow. Tembi and Zoela feel a stronger sense of family in Sicily as they bond with Saro’s aging mother and realistically make plans in time of her impending death.
The way this memoir is written is extraordinary with detail, including the details of Tembi handling her husband’s cancer treatment, their adoption process, her husband’s death, and her obsession to make sure she grieves healthily with her daughter. She talks about the moments when she misses her husband the most like picking fava beans in their garden in the Silver Lake neighborhood in LA, creating meals with Saro’s favorite utensils and pots. The memoir also shines a spotlight on how stressful a loved one’s death can be with all the checklists and how one person may bear most of the burden of crossing everything off. On audiobook, Tembi reads her story perfectly.
“The Mother of Black Hollywood” by Jenifer Lewis candidly describes the underrated actress’s rise on Broadway and eventually in TV and film. On audiobook, she tells her story in her dramatic and comedic tone that brings on the entertainment and wisdom.
Born and raised in the historically Black community of Kinloch, Missouri, Jenifer starts her book when she jumps on a plane to New York City after graduating from Webster University. She books a Broadway show within a week while staying with a Dominican lover, Miguel, she met in college and navigating the city with her gay friends. Once that show ends, she keeps successfully auditioning with even helping mold the character of Effie in Dreamgirls; a role she assumed she would get after Jennifer Holliday dropped out, but that Jennifer came back. That same instance would happen years later in Hollywood, where she had already nabbed roles in “A Different World” and “Beaches,” when she works with Norman Lear in developing the wife character in the Black spin-off of “All in the Family.” By that time, she’s built a bicoastal career, and she shares her disappointment of not getting that gig. Jenifer talks about other setbacks in entertainment, showing how restricted opportunities can be for Black actors.
Despite the disappointments, she performs for years with Bette Midler and co-creates her own film, “Jackie’s Back!” a 1999 cult classic. As roles start and end, she’s slowly earning the reputation of being the mother/aunt of Black Hollywood. She’s Tupac Shakur’s character’s mom on “Poetic Justice,” Aunt Helen on “Fresh Prince of Bel-Air,” Tina Turner’s mom on “What’s Love Got To Do With It?,” Whitney Houston’s character’s mom on “The Preacher’s Wife,” and now most recently Anthony Anderson’s character’s mom on “Black-ish.”
Juggling Hollywood and Broadway roles isn’t easy, especially when she’s diagnosed with bipolar disorder. She details the struggles with her mental illness and how it leads her to reliving her hard-knock childhood with her mother, who raised Jenifer and her six siblings mostly alone. Jenifer depends on her therapist to reassess her behavior as she sometimes botches auditions and other opportunities because she’s not in the right state of mind. Her bipolar disorder also manifests into sex addiction, in which she talks about some of her most memorable encounters.
Overall, it’s a perfect memoir as it’s well-written, divvies up stories in a good sequence, shows the growth from the mistakes, and opens the reader to a somewhat hidden world behind the scenes of our favorite shows and movies. Jenifer reads the memoir brilliantly on audiobook without a dull moment.
Queen Sugar -- Ep 401 -- "TBD" -- Photo Credit: Skip Bolen / 2019 Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. All Rights Reserved
With creating the season around a character’s memoir, Queen Sugar has focused on the traumas the memoir brought up for all the characters in the series. Wednesday’s episode emphasized those traumas and spurred an OWN Twitter chat.
Ahead of the episode, OWN held a three-hour Twitter chat under the hashtag #QueenSugarTalks to get viewers to discuss the issues of trauma and addiction. The episode starts with Nova (Rutina Wesley) and Charley (Dawn-Lyen Gardner) Bordelon going on a retreat in the woods. Feelings come out: Nova tells Charley she hates being invited on getaways she couldn’t afford. She feels small on Charley’s dime. They realize, as half-sisters, they still don’t know each other due to a lifelong level of competition and separation.
The addiction storyline comes in when Darla (Bianca Lawson), the former flame of Nova and Charley’s brother Ralph Angel (Kofi Siriboe), meets up with an old friend from her partying days. Her friend acknowledges Darla’s sobriety at the restaurant but asks Darla if it’s fine she still has a drink. Then she goes on and on about one of the last parties they went to eight years ago. She says Darla was so high that she went up to a room at a house party with two guys.
The walk down memory lane appears to be the night when Darla’s son Blue (Ethan Hutchison) was conceived. Darla can barely recall those moments and the revelation of a second man throws her into a tailspin at a nearby bar. Violet (Tina Lifford), the Bordelon aunt, soon finds a disheveled Darla in a park and takes her home where Darla unveils why she lied about Blue’s paternity for years. She said she buried the rape because of the shame of being hooked on drugs and alcohol. Violet calls Ralph Angel to come to Darla’s house, and Darla shares the story.
Charley’s son Micah (Nicholas L. Ashe) takes Blue to a carnival, where they get split up in the bathroom area. While Micah’s back is turned looking at his smartphone, Blue dashes to the women’s restroom to avoid the line to the men’s restroom. Micah asks people in the area if they had seen Blue, and when he gets no answers, he ventures off. Blue comes out of the restroom and ends up with a police officer to wait for Micah to find him. Since last season, Micah has been dealing with the trauma of being arrested and jailed by a white cop over an alleged traffic violation.
The trauma between the sisters and Darla have been brought up by Nova’s memoir Blessing and Blood, the book that’s been tearing apart the family since the beginning of the season. Micah’s trauma is in the book also, but it became known when it happened. As the women’s trauma is amplified, so is the trauma for the men. Micah’s recurring trauma around police brings him to a mild panic attack while Ralph Angel is still absorbing how his son is not biologically his. With two episodes left in the season, viewers may see more evolution of the trauma stemming from the memoir.
