The First Person

.

Homesick

By Jennifer Croft

PURCHASE

Translator Jennifer Croft crafts a poetic, genre-bending memoir about her relationship with her sister. One sister finds her passion in books and language, while the other sister…well, when tragedy strikes, everything is called into question. Homesick is a heartbreaking book about art and sisterhood, presented in a gorgeous edition that is itself a work of art. Lovers of family stories will find much to relate to in this beautiful memoir.
.

How We Fight for Our Lives

By Saeed Jones

PURCHASE

Readers in New York City can learn from a book as powerful and expressive as this. If you ever wondered how it is to grow up Black & Queer in the South, get this book. Full of incredibly insightful curiosity, the pain of feeling physically and mentally lonely, and a love for everything Black. If you love Kiese Laymon, Jacqueline Woodson, or James Baldwin, you will find this book necessary.

.
.

In the Dream House

By Carmen Maria Machado

PURCHASE

Fearless, harrowing, and masterfully told, In the Dream House traces a relationship turned psychologically abusive. With wit, vulnerability, and even playfulness, Machado unpacks utopian lesbian stereotypes and explores the history and realities of abuse in queer relationships. A genre bending story that needed to be told, In the Dream House challenges our ideas about what a memoir can be.
.

Incidental Inventions

By Elena Ferrante

PURCHASE

This haunting and intimate illustrated collection of micro-essays is a must-have for any Ferrante fanatic. Covering everything from addiction to heterosexual relationships, personal revelations to shocking confessions.

.
.

Make It Scream, Make It Burn

By Leslie Jamison

PURCHASE

Unerring journalistic integrity and prosody out the wazoo, these essays—which take us to a museum of break-ups, a past-life expert, a bathroom floor during the emotional torrent of enduring someone else’s wedding, and more—are glistening good reads. The ceaselessly curious Jamison has done it again.
.

Ordinary Girls

By Jaquira Diaz

PURCHASE

A star is born: Jaquira Diaz’s gay Latina memoir of growing up in Puerto Rico and Miami is an instant classic of self-portraiture that will sit beside such successes as Educated and Heavy for years to come. A harrowing early life is laid bare in bristling, fierce prose as she tells of her personal struggles with sexuality, racial oppression, and mental illness. Astoundingly, she rises triumphant and we are the luckier for her welcome appearance on the literary scene.

.
.

Year of the Monkey

By Patti Smith

PURCHASE

Patti Smith’s most recent memoir takes us through a harrowing year in her life: 2016, an exhausting year for many people. Smith turns 70, loses friends, contemplates morality, and—as usual—effuses poetry on every page.