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Children's & YAYA FictionYA

Kaya of the Ocean

Review by Linda M. Castellitto

Thirteen-year-old Kaya Song has long been excellent at compartmentalizing whenever something feels strange or scary: “I forced myself to shove the whole mess to the corner of my mind, where so much of my pain was boxed up and stored for another day.” 

It works, to some extent. The tween’s life in Lihiwai, Maui, is in many ways idyllic. She has caring friends; earns excellent grades; indulges in favorite pastimes like reading and drinking boba; and gets to work with friendly, cute Taiyo when she helps out at her parents’ Chinese restaurant.

Nonetheless, in debut author Gloria L. Huang’s fantastical, heartfelt coming-of-age tale Kaya of the Ocean, Kaya’s “anxiety [is] so severe that my skin was raw and red from washing and scratching, that my mind was always filled with worries and my heart filled with dread.” 

Fear of water is central to Kaya’s anxiety, exacerbated by the fact that Maui is, well, an island, and Kaya’s friends are avid surfers. As Kaya of the Ocean opens, they’ve convinced her to join them at a secret cove. She and Taiyo stick to “baby waves,” but a giant yellowfin tuna knocks Taiyo off his surfboard and Kaya must rescue him. Less traumatizing, but no less weird is when, at home, the water in a drinking glass seems to move toward her. What is going on?

Fortunately, Kaya’s aunt is visiting from New York City and may have answers. She’s researched their family history, which includes an ancient Chinese water goddess named Mazu. Could Kaya’s anxiety and water-based goings-on be something else altogether? 

Huang employs vivid flashbacks (to China in 1629 and 1949, and San Francisco in 1876) plus a cascade of present-day revelations as she unfurls the surprising truth about Kaya’s connection to Mazu. “I couldn’t help feeling optimistic that things could change. That I could change,” Kaya muses. Her gradual willingness to talk about her feelings, trust herself and believe she deserves the support she needs will resonate with readers on their own journey to self-confidence, magic-infused or otherwise.

In Gloria L. Huang’s fantastical, heartfelt coming-of-age tale Kaya of the Ocean, the protagonist’s gradual willingness to trust herself will resonate with readers on their own journey to self-confidence, magic-infused or otherwise.
NonfictionMemoir

Lost Found Kept

Review by Amy Scribner

As someone who could only watch the lurid reality TV show Hoarders through my fingers, I approached Lost Found Kept with trepidation. The A&E show’s dramatization of mental illness and exploitation of its subjects is disturbing, to say the least. So, three hundred pages describing the layers of accumulated possessions and trash in one woman’s home? Can one read through their fingers?

But Lost Found Kept is no Hoarders on the page. Author and clinical psychologist Deborah Derrickson Kossmann has created a beautiful, piercing and empathetic—if at times tough to read—memoir in which she reckons with her chaotic childhood: a deeply flawed mother and an abusive stepfather who eventually exited their lives in a haze of mental illness and alcohol.

When Kossmann and her sister realize their aging mother is no longer able to care for herself, they finally visit their childhood home to prepare it for sale. The sisters have long suspected the house had fallen into disrepair, but their mother insisted they not come past the curb. When Kossmann opens the door, she understands why. “There is no floor, there’s kind of a sloping step made of things: bags, unidentifiable solidified objects that are about a foot tall,” she writes. “It feels like two worlds have collided in a planetary disaster, and I’m standing in the middle of the rubble.”

Kossmann and her husband wear long sleeves, pants, hiking boots and respirator masks. They spray themselves with insect repellant and enter what they have darkly begun calling the Hoarder House. Alongside her sister and brother-in-law, they spend weeks unearthing old family treasures strewn about in unthinkable conditions. Yet even as she sweats her way through the project in the late summer humidity, raging at her mother for letting things get so bad, Kossmann shares clear-eyed reflections on her conflicting feelings about the woman who raised her. The most remarkable thing among many remarkable things in Lost Found Kept is Kossmann’s ability to acknowledge the humanity and goodness in a woman who has brought her so much pain, in part by learning how the pattern of mother-daughter trauma started before her birth.

“From mother to daughter, the anger and pain from your mother, it’s like a stone in your heart,” a family therapist tells Kossmann’s mother. And while that stone can never be truly dissolved, through her poignant memoir, Kossmann provides a sketch for anyone seeking to forgive and move forward.

Deborah Derrickson Kossmann reckons with family trauma and her mother’s hoarding disorder in her piercing, empathetic debut memoir, Lost Found Kept.
NonfictionPhotographyLifestylesFashion

Icons of Style

Review by Laura Hutson Hunter

Josh Sims’ Icons of Style: In 100 Garments is like a visual encyclopedia of every piece of clothing that matters, from mini skirts and leather jackets to blazers and T-shirts. Along with a brief summary that contextualizes the garment in both history and popular culture, a slew of visual components accompany each entry. For the section called The Slip, a paparazzi photo of Kate Moss and Naomi Campbell in silver slip dresses is positioned next to a concert photo of a slip-clad Courtney Love. Together, the photos tell a story of how glamour and grunge intersected and diverged. The entry for sweatshirts is among the book’s most multifaceted: An image of a young Ronald Reagan is followed by a shot of Wu-Tang Clan’s U-God wearing a hoodie, his arm raised in a gesture of triumph that’s mirrored by Sylvester Stallone in a film still from Rocky. These three seemingly opposite figures are seen here united—in fashion, at least. Icons of Style also has wardrobe inspo for miles: photos of Soul Train dancers, Queen Elizabeth II and Jean Seberg appear alongside shots from 1983’s The Outsiders and 2011’s Drive. You’d be hard-pressed to come up with a more complete history of everyday style.

You’d be hard-pressed to come up with a more complete history of everyday fashion than Josh Sims’ Icons of Style.
NonfictionHistoryBlack HistoryAmerican History

In Open Contempt

Review by Kelly Blewett

Who are American heroes? What are American values? How do the answers to these questions change with time and perspective? Irwin Weathersby Jr. takes up these fundamental issues of our times in his indispensable In Open Contempt: Confronting White Supremacy in Art and Public Space, which examines how we bear witness to sites and perpetrators of racial trauma, both collectively and individually.

Weathersby opens the book in New Orleans, just after Mayor Mitch Landrieu’s 2017 fiat that Confederate statues be removed from public spaces. He visits the sites of these absences and talks with people there: unaware tourists, gloomy white supremacists, a man who paused to see whether his dog would be willing to pee on a pedestal that used to elevate the figure of Jefferson Davis. Elsewhere, sites attempt to tell a more complete history, such as Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello, which offers a tour about the lives of Jefferson’s over 600 slaves. Weathersby also visits sites of counternarratives, including the partially completed Crazy Horse memorial that stands in tension with Mount Rushmore, and Kehinde Wiley’s Rumors of War, a bronze statue of a contemporary Black man atop a horse in the style of Civil War monuments. Weathersby explores public spaces from Louisiana to Alabama, South Carolina, Virginia, New York and beyond, and his vivid prose will likely have you searching online to see what he describes.

Weathersby also examines the history of the public spaces he encountered throughout his life as a Black person from Louisiana. Weathersby’s longing for education led him to Morehouse, a historically Black college in Atlanta whose campus showcases inspiring sculptures created by Ed Dwight, the first Black candidate for NASA’s astronaut program, whose rejection by NASA spurred him toward the arts. Learning about Dwight’s life showed Weathersby “how our lives are often unconsciously shaped by unseen sculptors of the physical and divine.” The New Orleans street where Weathersby grew up was one of dozens in the city named after enslavers. His family home was demolished after Hurricane Katrina. Monuments, Weathersby writes, “may appear to underscore the past—and they do this too—but in the process, they suppress other events and stories that shaped the commemorated life and space.”

In Open Contempt asks the reader to explore their own landscapes, and Weathersby knows what they will find: many traces, both obvious and subtle, of white supremacy. “Go looking for white supremacy, find it everywhere. Go looking for nothing, find white supremacy everywhere.” In this impeccable book, Weathersby exhorts readers to pay attention, and he offers his own story of looking so that we can see—and confront—our history alongside him.

Irvin Weathersby Jr.’s indispensable In Open Contempt examines how we bear witness to sites and perpetrators of racial trauma.
NonfictionSelf-Help

How to Be Enough

Review by Sarah McCraw Crow

In the follow-up to Ellen Hendriksen’s helpful guide to working through social anxiety, How to Be Yourself, the clinical psychologist takes on another common psychological challenge: perfectionism. “Demanding a lot of yourself has probably gotten you a long way. I know it’s bought me a lot,” she writes in How to Be Enough: Self-Acceptance for Self-Critics and Perfectionists. But holding very high, perfectionistic standards can lead to isolation, burnout, loneliness and general dissatisfaction. Hendriksen notes that perfectionism—defined, in a nutshell, as generally demanding more of yourself than a situation requires—is on the rise, especially among young people.

Hendriksen covers elements of perfectionism, like being overly self-critical: “We are our own worst critics. We focus on flaws rather than what’s going well.” Perfectionists also overidentify with their own and others’ standards; their sense of self is always tied to meeting high expectations. “A mistake or shortcoming means we’ve failed, even if our standards were unrealistic,” she writes. Hendriksen describes herself as a perfectionist, and draws on her own experiences, as well as those of disguised, composite clients, to explain the sources of perfectionism and its effects. While not a diagnosis, she notes, perfectionism is closely linked to a host of issues—depression, anxiety, eating disorders, self-harm, even suicide.

Read our interview with Ellen Hendriksen, author of ‘How to Be Enough.’

The bulk of How to Be Enough is devoted to seven shifts in thought and behavior to push back against perfectionism, like learning to be kinder to ourselves, being more flexible, releasing past mistakes, comparing less and letting go of control. Hendriksen illustrates each of these shifts with the story of a struggling client, along with research to back up her advice. She also incorporates anecdotes and lessons from celebrities, like legendary UCLA basketball coach John Wooden, and a not-so-great performance that Jon Bon Jovi and billionaire Warren Buffet once gave. Throughout, Hendriksen refers to two entertainment titans, Walt Disney and Fred Rogers, to show the difference between unhealthy, isolating perfectionism and high but healthy standards. (Spoiler: Mr. Rogers is the one to emulate.)

The book incorporates plenty of research—it contains 36 pages’ worth of endnotes—but Hendriksen’s chatty style keeps the narrative accessible. How to Be Enough shows how to quit being your own toughest critic, and is a great addition to the self-help bookshelf.

Ellen Hendriksen’s chatty, accessible How to Be Enough shows how to quit being your own toughest critic, and is a great addition to the self-help bookshelf.
FictionLiterary FictionFamily Drama

I’ll Come to You

Review by Melissa Brown

“Despite the superficial monotony of their lives, things were changing so quickly.” Who among us—especially those with children or aging parents—can’t relate to that statement? 

Rebecca Kauffman’s I’ll Come to You follows an average family through one year (1995) and all that those 12 months bring. Corinne is pregnant with her first child, and she and her husband, Paul, are waiting expectantly for the new baby girl. Paul’s divorced mother, Ellen, is trying to find love and companionship again, and Corinne’s mother, Janet, is struggling to be honest about the cognitive decline of her husband, Bruce. Corinne’s car salesman brother, Rob, grapples with his own newly single state as he counts the days until it’s his turn for time with his twin sons. Each day presents occasions for joy or sorrow as these men and women wrestle with how life has gone and the challenge of attempting to connect with one another. 

Kauffman thoughtfully portrays family relationships in all their tension and secrets as well as all their intimacy and wonder, in an unhurried narrative similar to the introspective style of authors like Ethan Joella or Ann Napolitano. Occasionally, her characters’ interactions are rendered more stiffly than authentically. And yet, I’ll Come to You surprises with moments of poetic poignancy, like when Bruce drafts a letter to his unborn granddaughter, and captures the palpable worry that any couple experiences about their children and the future. As Paul muses during his wife’s pregnancy, “For some people happiness seemed to arrive magically and effortlessly, like a little creature that flew to perch on its host’s shoulder and devoted its entire life to singing into their ear. In other cases, a person had to work like a craftsman to build it painstakingly, tiny piece by tiny piece, and then to protect it from predators of every size and form.” 

As the seasons change, defining moments from each character’s past take on new significance. The many facets of family vacations, Christmases, late nights in a hospital and any time of day with a newborn are all tangibly displayed in Kauffman’s precise and descriptive prose. 

Rebecca Kauffman’s thoughtful portrayal of family relationships in all their tension and secrets as well as intimacy and wonder in I’ll Come to You resembles the introspective style of authors like Ethan Joella or Ann Napolitano.
Science Fiction & FantasyScience Fiction

Hammajang Luck

Review by Ralph Harris

Set in the remote Kepler system, far from Earth, Hammajang Luck by Makana Yamamoto follows a thief named Edie as they try to make a life for themself after an eight-year stint in prison. Edie is released early thanks to their old friend and former partner in crime, Angel, who gives them the opportunity of a lifetime: a heist targeting Joyce Atlas, the CEO of their space station home. There’s one huge problem—Angel once betrayed Edie, which was what sent them to prison in the first place.

Trusting Angel is a difficult prospect, but Edie doesn’t have many options. They’ve been blacklisted by the mega-corp that controls the space station, so they can’t get any respectable work. Andie, Edie’s sister, works two jobs to keep her two kids fed, and has a third on the way. Edie reluctantly joins Angel’s crew, despite having built up eight years of resentment and hurt. However, even when the pair’s emotions explode, Yamamoto makes it clear that they still care for each other: Angel will surprise Edie with a joke or concern for their safety, while Edie burns with sympathy for Angel’s struggles.

Angel’s small team is composed of lovable miscreants, like 17-year-old hacker Malia, who jabbers incessantly, and naive dancer Sara, who is just as excited to take her first steps into a life of crime as she is to buy Malia a present. While the different crew members do not always get along perfectly, there is never really a sense they would betray each other. Yamamoto focuses on their supportive natures: When Sara runs her first grift and has to dodge a mark’s attempt to drug her drink, the crew burns to defend her even while they stay on task. As soon as she escapes the harrowing situation, each member comforts and supports Sara while her adrenaline cools off.

Each step in the crew’s methodical scheme is practical, contributing to the verisimilitude of Yamamoto’s world building as ID cards are cloned, fingerprints taken and escape routes secured. This is not the master plan of a super-genius, perfectly executed the night before the heist. It is more akin to the work of a skilled craftsperson: Watching Angel’s plan slowly come together feels like watching an experienced painter, with the precision on display inspiring muted awe.

The novel’s final act builds on all the momentum of two-act rising action, wrapping things up with an ultimately satisfying, if somewhat predictable, ending. Like an Ocean’s movie set in space, Hammajang Luck will charm readers looking for a smooth ride with a lovable cast.

Like an Ocean’s movie set in space, Hammajang Luck will charm readers looking for a smooth ride with a lovable cast.
FictionLiterary FictionHistorical FictionDebut Fiction

Homeseeking

Review by Thane Tierney

Zhang Suchi and Wang Haiwen, the protagonists of Karissa Chen’s epic debut novel, Homeseeking, have a star-crossed romance that waxes and wanes over decades and continents. Suchi and Haiwen’s story begins when they are children in Japanese-occupied Shanghai during the 1930s; their relationship blossoms into romance in their teens, but is abruptly interrupted in 1947 when Haiwen enlists in Chiang Kai-shek’s Nationalist Army. Suchi and her older sister are then sent to Hong Kong to escape the civil war, in which Mao Zedong’s Communists ultimately prevail. Separated by conflicts both internal and external, Suchi and Haiwen sacrifice their youthful dreams to build parallel, albeit occasionally intersecting, lives.

Homeseeking is primarily a love story, set against some of the most monumental events of modern Asian history. Its narrative hopscotches back and forth across seven decades, until the estranged sweethearts rekindle their relationship in the unlikely locale of a 99 Ranch Market produce section in Los Angeles. But it’s also a political story, tracing the diaspora of post-World War II mainland Chinese who never expected to wind up in Taiwan, or Hong Kong, or America. Finally, it’s a family story, of the ever-present yearning for “people, people who shared the same ghosts as you, of folks long gone, places long disappeared.”

Over a decade in the making, Homeseeking embodies the ambitious scope of James Michener’s historical novels or (while not nearly as long) Vikram Seth’s A Suitable Boy. Chen’s ability to navigate effortlessly across cultures and eras reflects not only the depth of her research, but also her natural gifts as a storyteller. 

There is one potential stumbling block for a more casual reader: Chen transliterates Chinese words differently under different circumstances. For instance, the character Suchi is also referred to as Suji at different points in the narrative. Chen addresses this in a forward, explaining that her choices reflect different regional pronunciations and romanization styles, and asking readers to empathize with the linguistic challenges her characters, and immigrants across the globe, must navigate. While it may take a few detours to Google to clarify the occasional word or phrase, the book settles into a compelling narrative that fills in most of the blanks contextually. It’s a small price to pay for admittance to such an auspicious debut.

Karissa Chen’s Homeseeking is both a love story and a family story, capturing the ever-present yearning for “people, people who shared the same ghosts as you, of folks long gone, places long disappeared.”
RomanceParanormal Romance

Feast While You Can

Review by Dolly R. Sickles

The wife-and-wife team of Mikaella Clements and Onjuli Datta (The View Was Exhausting) are back with Feast While You Can, a queer horror-romance about a monster that feasts on the “passion, heartbreak and mess” of life. 

Angelina Sicco has lived in the small European mountain town of Cadenze for her entire life. The large Sicco family is entrenched in the conservative community, and Angelina is well-liked despite being a lesbian. But this was not the case for Jagvi, Angelina’s brother’s ex-girlfriend. After Jagvi broke up with him and came out as a lesbian, she moved away. In the decade since, each time Jagvi returns to Cadenze, she proves to be “the chaos element in Angelina’s equilibrium.” That is, until Angelina has a terrifying and visceral encounter with a monster, and realizes that Jagvi is the only thing that can hold it at bay. 

In Feast While You Can, Clements and Datta are firmly in the realm of psychological horror: A serial killer hiding in a closet isn’t the scariest thing in the room; rather, the underlying trauma of homophobia and racism feeds the horror and the menace. In the small community of Cadenze, the familiarity of family, friends and neighbors is both comforting and suffocating. This robust cast of secondary characters adds to the weighty conflicts between responsibility, family and self-preservation that Clements and Datta investigate, but at times the extended family drama is a distraction from the forward momentum. 

There are so many layers of horror, trauma and sexy trysts to unpack here, with the monster functioning as both a real entity and a manifestation of the taboo desire Angelina feels for Jagvi. It’s like an unseen devil on her shoulder, willing her to act out her most secret desires so it can live vicariously through her until there’s nothing left of her to give.

You might want to read this one with the lights on, lest you look over your shoulder and realize the monster’s in the room with you.

A terrifying monster is both a real entity and a manifestation of taboo desires in Mikaella Clements and Onjuli Datta’s Feast While You Can.
Children's & YAYA FictionYA

For She Is Wrath

Review by Tami Orendain

Dania is in prison for a murder she did not commit. She spends every day plotting her escape and listing off the people responsible for her imprisonment: Vahid, the cruel emperor; Darbaran, the loathsome head of the palace guards; and Mazin, Vahid’s ward and Dania’s ex-lover. After a failed attempt to break out, Dania is surprised when Noor, a fellow prisoner, tunnels into her cell. When Noor reveals that she has a plan to escape, as well as a way to access hidden djinn magic, Dania sees a clear way to get her revenge.

A fantasy-fuelled retelling of The Count of Monte Cristo, For She Is Wrath takes the tension and mystery of Alexandre Dumas’ classic novel and transfers it to a lush, exuberant, Pakistan-inspired setting. Emily Varga’s narrative drops readers straight into the action from the very beginning: A prison escape, dark magic power and secret identities set up heart-pounding action that remains present throughout the entire tale.

But For She Is Wrath is not just about getting revenge. It’s also about how shaky the path to it can be. Dania’s growing desire for retribution is a force that not only drives her forward, but also compels her to look backward. As they work together to achieve revenge, Dania and Noor must come to terms with the price of vengeance—and decide whether that price is worth it. The book is not shy about the impact of Dania and Noor’s actions, asking them to sit with the repercussions of their schemes. Is violence ever warranted? Is it all right to harm others in the pursuit of justice?

This is a fresh story with bold heroines and a unique, vibrant setting. For She Is Wrath has the intrigue of The Count of Monte Cristo, but is ultimately sweeter, with wholesome characters and nuanced themes about justice, healing, and forgiveness. Readers, especially fans of Dumas, are sure to appreciate Varga’s multilayered twists and turns as Dania and Noor uncover world-altering truths about their imprisonments, their backgrounds and the empire in which they live, and learn what it is they truly stand for.

A fantasy-fuelled retelling of the Count of Monte Cristo, For She Is Wrath takes the tension and mystery of Alexandre Dumas’ classic novel and transfers it to a lush, exuberant, Pakistan-inspired setting.
NonfictionHistoryEuropean History

Embers of the Hands

Review by Alden Mudge

There is much that glitters in Eleanor Barraclough’s learned excavation of Viking history, Embers of the Hands: Hidden Histories of the Viking Age. No surprise there. Her title comes from a metaphor for gold found in a Norse kenning, a type of figure of speech. She herself is a witty, sometimes earthy writer and a wiz at popularizing scholarly pursuits. (In 2013, she was named one of 10 BBC New Generation Thinkers for her ability to turn her research into programs for broadcast).

After an introduction with a sketch of Viking history, she takes up matters of love, belief, home, slavery, play, physical life and travel. By “travel,” she does not mean the oft-told tales of raiding parties of Viking barbarians like the one that fell upon the English island monastery of Lindisfarne in 793 C.E., launching, some say, the Viking Age. Instead she means “a web of connections that spanned cultures, countries and continents,” including exchanges with Eastern Europe and Turkey and the colonization of Iceland and Greenland.

Her interest is in the experience of common Vikings, the “everyday humans who fell between the cracks of history.” She tells their stories through well-crafted riffs on bone fragments, game pieces, discarded implements, farmstead scraps of material and other detritus that remain centuries after their deaths. A stick etched with runes informs us that a woman named Gyda wants her man home from the tavern. The surprising pervasiveness of combs and corroborating travelers’ accounts let us know that Vikings were unexpectedly well groomed. Other objects enable a reasonable reconstruction of what an older man in a brown woolen tunic looked like. Still others suggest the desperate hardships of living on remote farmsteads in Greenland as the climate changed and it became too cold to sustain farming.

Embers of the Hands is a stunning and perplexing adventure. Stunning because we have these sharp splinters from the past that tell us something about Vikings. Perplexing because our knowledge is so incomplete, so unstable, so subject to revision and change. With a revolutionary sort of scholarly caution, Barraclough even questions the boundaries of the so-called Viking Age; she proposes here three alternative beginnings and three alternative endings to the era. Instead of being a canal with compartmentalized locks, history “is more like a great untamed river,” she writes. Some readers will surely seek higher ground away from the torrents of time. Others will plunge into the deep.

The stunning, adventurous Embers of the Hands examines the lives of everyday Vikings who otherwise might have been lost to history.
Children's & YAYA FictionYA

Everything is Poison

Review by Nicole Brinkley

Carmela Tofana wants more than anything to join the women at La Tofana’s, an apothecary run by her mother Giulia in 17th-century Rome. On her 16th birthday, she’s finally allowed in the door, first as front-of-house help, sweeping the floors and greeting customers, then eventually earning the ability to work with the recipes and herbs themselves. It is not always pretty work, but it is important work, and Carmela loves it.

But when a woman comes in asking for her mother’s secret and powerful poison, Aqua Tofana, Carmela realizes quickly how dangerous their line of work can be. If the poison ends up in the wrong hands, Carmela’s whole world could come crumbling down. But when the women in her community need help, Giulia Tofana steps up—and Carmela is determined to do the same, no matter who calls her a witch.

Blood Water Paint author Joy McCullough returns with another historical young adult novel that blends prose and poetry, as Everything Is Poison imagines the life of the daughter of famous real-life poisoner Giulia Tofana. Chapters in prose following Carmela’s life alternate with short about the lives of people around Carmela: abusive husbands and struggling wives, lonely children and pained adults.

McCullough’s focus rests on relationships conventionally overlooked in history: those among found families, female friends, and groups of women shoved to the outskirts of society. The desperation and determination of all these women in Everything Is Poison draw from rich historical detail while creating obvious parallels to modern struggles. “That is the daily work we are here for. Giving women a choice over what happens in their bodies,” remarks Giulia to her daughter, and that fierce and quiet theme permeates the story.

Readers who enjoy historical fiction focused on the power of community will find much to love in Everything Is Poison. Fans of Ruta Sepetys and Stacey Lee should pick up this fiery, unflinching novel.

The desperation and determination of the women in Everything Is Poison draw from rich historical detail while creating obvious parallels to modern struggles.
NonfictionMemoir

Dirtbag Queen

Review by Catherine Hollis

Andy Corren’s profane and hilarious obituary for his mother, the “plus-sized Jewish lady redneck” Renay Mandel Corren, went viral during the dark pandemic days of December 2021. (“Renay lied a lot,” her son wrote. “But on the plus side, Renay didn’t cook, she didn’t clean, and she was lousy with money, too.) Corren has followed up with a memoir about life with Renay, a book every bit as crass and delightful as the woman herself. A blend of Southern gothic horror and Borscht Belt humor, Dirtbag Queen is a one-of-a-kind reading experience. 

Growing up gay and Jewish in rural North Carolina in the 1970s and ’80s would have been tricky enough for the young Andy, before factoring in a lack of stable housing or access to food. Add in four older brothers, only some of whose nicknames can be printed in a family magazine, a deadbeat dad and a sexual awakening during the “celestial wonders” of the Mormon variety show Donny & Marie, and you’ve got a coming-of-age story unique in the field.

Andy’s job as a child was to be his mother’s emotional support animal, sharing her waterbed, her Judith Krantz novels and her love of all things Hollywood and trashy. A scene where a child Andy massages his mother’s feet, swollen from obesity and her late-night triple shifts, suggests how this childhood has burdened Corren’s less-than-successful adulthood. Yet he captures Renay’s outsized passions for Pepsi, bowling, porn and gambling with genuine love and affection.

While there are other memoirs that document rural poverty and parental neglect, few manage the feat with the humor and sparkle of Dirtbag Queen. Never sentimental or self-pitying, the memoir records Renay’s dying moments (at 84) with a good dose of compassion and love. Of course, Renay’s passage from life into death would be both rose-scented and marked by fraternal discord. Of course, her memorial took place at the bowling alley she lorded over. And clearly, in the end, she was dearly loved by everyone she ever stole from. Her dubious charms and outsize presence, in all senses of the word, now grace readers everywhere in this moving tribute.

In his moving, hilarious coming-of-age memoir, Andy Corren eulogizes his delightfully crass “Jewish lady redneck” mother.

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