A matriarch’s idiosyncratic life captured and besainted through a succession of hilarious memories.
A doting son commemorates the life and legacy of his eccentric mother.
Playwright and performer Corren’s memory of his beloved mother, who died in late 2021 at 84, was immortalized by a pithy, comedic obituary that became a national social media sensation. His family memoir flamboyantly elaborates on her eventful life in Fayetteville, North Carolina, as a “plus-sized Jewish lady redneck” named Renay, mother to a kooky Southern brood. The author writes of being the youngest of six, exiled every summer throughout his childhood to his grandparents’ Miami Beach home to entertain them with his celebrity impersonations. Corren establishes himself early on as an uproarious raconteur, having coined pet names for his siblings, according to their personalities, and sharing endless anecdotes about their misadventures getting backyard haircuts, their work in tandem with their mother at the local bowling alley, the family’s time living in Japan, and their house evictions during sweltering Fayetteville summers. Corren retraces his mother’s reckless early years as a nut-loving, “ravenous and ravishing redheaded” Southern woman who, when faced with trouble, “shot first, asked questions later” and was, surprisingly, a voracious reader. Unfortunately, Renay’s divorce in 1975 became the event that unraveled her emotionally and financially. Despite their former devotion, Corren’s siblings (and the author himself, on his 18th birthday) left Fayetteville forever. Though his queerness emerged throughout his youth, Corren divulges that he always knew he was special, “like a hothouse plant that needed a little extra attention,” which his mother always lavished on him in her own unique and boisterous way. Though some will find Corren’s delivery of rapid-fire anecdotes dizzying, he manages to downshift toward the book’s conclusion, recounting a poignant trip back to Fayetteville, five months after his mother’s death and 34 years after he’d permanently left the area, to organize a family memorial for Renay at the bowling alley she always adored.
A matriarch’s idiosyncratic life captured and besainted through a succession of hilarious memories.Pub Date: Jan. 14, 2025
ISBN: 9781538742228
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Review Posted Online: Oct. 25, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2024
The heartbreaking story of an emotionally battered child delivered with captivating candor and grace.
The former iCarly star reflects on her difficult childhood.
In her debut memoir, titled after her 2020 one-woman show, singer and actor McCurdy (b. 1992) reveals the raw details of what she describes as years of emotional abuse at the hands of her demanding, emotionally unstable stage mom, Debra. Born in Los Angeles, the author, along with three older brothers, grew up in a home controlled by her mother. When McCurdy was 3, her mother was diagnosed with breast cancer. Though she initially survived, the disease’s recurrence would ultimately take her life when the author was 21. McCurdy candidly reconstructs those in-between years, showing how “my mom emotionally, mentally, and physically abused me in ways that will forever impact me.” Insistent on molding her only daughter into “Mommy’s little actress,” Debra shuffled her to auditions beginning at age 6. As she matured and starting booking acting gigs, McCurdy remained “desperate to impress Mom,” while Debra became increasingly obsessive about her daughter’s physical appearance. She tinted her daughter’s eyelashes, whitened her teeth, enforced a tightly monitored regimen of “calorie restriction,” and performed regular genital exams on her as a teenager. Eventually, the author grew understandably resentful and tried to distance herself from her mother. As a young celebrity, however, McCurdy became vulnerable to eating disorders, alcohol addiction, self-loathing, and unstable relationships. Throughout the book, she honestly portrays Debra’s cruel perfectionist personality and abusive behavior patterns, showing a woman who could get enraged by everything from crooked eyeliner to spilled milk. At the same time, McCurdy exhibits compassion for her deeply flawed mother. Late in the book, she shares a crushing secret her father revealed to her as an adult. While McCurdy didn’t emerge from her childhood unscathed, she’s managed to spin her harrowing experience into a sold-out stage act and achieve a form of catharsis that puts her mind, body, and acting career at peace.
The heartbreaking story of an emotionally battered child delivered with captivating candor and grace.Pub Date: Aug. 9, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-982185-82-4
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: May 30, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2022
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
A concise personal and scholarly history that avoids academic jargon as it illuminates emotional truths.
The Harvard historian and Texas native demonstrates what the holiday means to her and to the rest of the nation.
Initially celebrated primarily by Black Texans, Juneteenth refers to June 19, 1865, when a Union general arrived in Galveston to proclaim the end of slavery with the defeat of the Confederacy. If only history were that simple. In her latest, Gordon-Reed, winner of the Pulitzer Prize, National Book Award, Anisfield-Wolf Book Award, and numerous other honors, describes how Whites raged and committed violence against celebratory Blacks as racism in Texas and across the country continued to spread through segregation, Jim Crow laws, and separate-but-equal rationalizations. As Gordon-Reed amply shows in this smooth combination of memoir, essay, and history, such racism is by no means a thing of the past, even as Juneteenth has come to be celebrated by all of Texas and throughout the U.S. The Galveston announcement, notes the author, came well after the Emancipation Proclamation but before the ratification of the 13th Amendment. Though Gordon-Reed writes fondly of her native state, especially the strong familial ties and sense of community, she acknowledges her challenges as a woman of color in a state where “the image of Texas has a gender and a race: “Texas is a White man.” The author astutely explores “what that means for everyone who lives in Texas and is not a White man.” With all of its diversity and geographic expanse, Texas also has a singular history—as part of Mexico, as its own republic from 1836 to 1846, and as a place that “has connections to people of African descent that go back centuries.” All of this provides context for the uniqueness of this historical moment, which Gordon-Reed explores with her characteristic rigor and insight.
A concise personal and scholarly history that avoids academic jargon as it illuminates emotional truths.Pub Date: May 4, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-63149-883-1
Page Count: 128
Publisher: Liveright/Norton
Review Posted Online: Feb. 23, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2021
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
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