STARRED REVIEW
March 2021

Memoir March

Six memoirists share their experiences of transforming memory and truth, joy and pain, into captivating stories.
STARRED REVIEW
March 2021

Memoir March

Six memoirists share their experiences of transforming memory and truth, joy and pain, into captivating stories.
March 2021

Memoir March

Six memoirists share their experiences of transforming memory and truth, joy and pain, into captivating stories.
Share this Article:

Six memoirists share their experiences of transforming memory and truth, joy and pain, into captivating stories. Read our reviews of all six memoirs, as well as Q&As with their authors, and discover your next favorite first-person narrative.

Blindfold: A Memoir of Capture, Torture, and Enlightenment by Theo Padnos

Read the review:
Theo Padnos recounts being kidnapped and imprisoned by operatives of al-Qaida.

Read our Q&A with Theo Padnos:
"Some people will have difficulty believing I wasn’t killed."

 

Floating in a Most Peculiar Way: A Memoir by Louis Chude-Sokei

Read the review:
Louis Chude-Sokei captures the prejudices and tensions, pain and promise of being African in Jamaica and the United States.

Read our Q&A with Louis Chude-Sokei:
"There is often great hostility toward those who refuse conventional racial expectations."

 

Raceless: In Search of Family, Identity, and the Truth About Where I Belong by Georgina Lawton

Read the review:
Georgina Lawton was born to a white mother and father. And yet, as we learn in the first pages of her eloquent memoir, Lawton is not white.

Read our Q&A with Georgina Lawton:
"No one prepares you for the emotional time travel that a memoir necessitates."

 

Speak, Okinawa: A Memoir by Elizabeth Miki Brina

Read the review:
Elizabeth Miki Brina searches for whether love can heal a family traumatized by racism and colonization.

Read our Q&A with Elizabeth Miki Brina:
"I grew up trying to believe that race, family history and cultural history were inconsequential. I’m glad I don’t believe that anymore."

 

Plunder: A Memoir of Family Property and Nazi Treasure by Menachem Kaiser

Read the review:
As Menachem Kaiser searches for the story of his Polish Holocaust survivor relatives, he wanders deep into the shadowy realm of Nazi treasure hunters.

Read our Q&A with Menachem Kaiser:
"It is so hugely rewarding to investigate your story. It is so much stranger, more complicated, more beautiful, more tragic than you thought."

 

Spilt Milk: Memoirs by Courtney Zoffness

Read the review:
Courtney Zoffness uses layered storytelling to plait her life experiences with larger observations about society.

Read our Q&A with Courtney Zoffness:
"When I revisited these experiences years later, I saw them all through the lens of motherhood. It’s a thread that binds Spilt Milk."

Get a custom reading list from BookPage!

Stay on top of new releases: Sign up for our newsletter to receive reading recommendations in your favorite genres.

Recent Features