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Long Live the Tribe of Fatherless Girls
Acclaimed literary essayist T Kira Madden's raw and redemptive debut memoir is about coming of age and reckoning with desire as a queer, biracial teenager amidst the fierce contradictions of Boca Raton, Florida, a place where she found cult-like privilege, shocking racial disparities, rampant white-collar crime, and powerfully destructive standards of beauty hiding in plain sight.
As a child, Madden lived a life of extravagance, from her exclusive private school to her equestrian trophies and designer shoe-brand name. But under the surface was a wild instability. The only child of parents continually battling drug and alcohol addictions, Madden confronted her environment alone. Facing a culture of assault and objectification, she found lifelines in the desperately loving friendships of fatherless girls.
With unflinching honesty and lyrical prose, spanning from 1960s Hawai'i to the present-day struggle of a young woman mourning the loss of a father while unearthing truths that reframe her reality, Long Live the Tribe of Fatherless Girls is equal parts eulogy and love letter. It's a story about trauma and forgiveness, about families of blood and affinity, both lost and found, unmade and rebuilt, crooked and beautiful.
As a child, Madden lived a life of extravagance, from her exclusive private school to her equestrian trophies and designer shoe-brand name. But under the surface was a wild instability. The only child of parents continually battling drug and alcohol addictions, Madden confronted her environment alone. Facing a culture of assault and objectification, she found lifelines in the desperately loving friendships of fatherless girls.
With unflinching honesty and lyrical prose, spanning from 1960s Hawai'i to the present-day struggle of a young woman mourning the loss of a father while unearthing truths that reframe her reality, Long Live the Tribe of Fatherless Girls is equal parts eulogy and love letter. It's a story about trauma and forgiveness, about families of blood and affinity, both lost and found, unmade and rebuilt, crooked and beautiful.
336 pages, Hardcover
First published March 19, 2019
755 people are currently reading
34.5k people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 1,315 reviews
May 14, 2019
Update: Longer thoughts here:
I came to this extraordinary memoir of linked essays through "The Feels of Love," a gobsmackingly good essay that the author wrote for Guernica Magazine. "The Feels of Love," which I have taught in every writing class since 2016, is a wrenching, vivid look at the rippling consequences of teenage sexual assault. I was excited for LLtToFG (great title!), and could only hope that the other essays would match the experience. And, somehow, it exceeded it.
The stories of Madden's life are so fascinating - from queerness to drugs, from the Rat's Mouth of Florida to New York City, with surprise siblings and Steve Madden shoes along the way - that this would have been a compulsively readable book no matter what, but when you throw in that Madden is an exceptionally gifted writer on the line level, you have something special here. She is unflinching, emotional, hilarious, in touch with every age of adolescence.
I defy anyone reading this not to fall in love with the author - Madden is someone to root for, and someone who speaks to something desperately needed right now. Singling out individual essays would be foolish, because the united whole is what matters here. This is a memoir to come back to, that rare thing where talent and content unify instead of cancel out. Out this March: be excited for it.
I came to this extraordinary memoir of linked essays through "The Feels of Love," a gobsmackingly good essay that the author wrote for Guernica Magazine. "The Feels of Love," which I have taught in every writing class since 2016, is a wrenching, vivid look at the rippling consequences of teenage sexual assault. I was excited for LLtToFG (great title!), and could only hope that the other essays would match the experience. And, somehow, it exceeded it.
The stories of Madden's life are so fascinating - from queerness to drugs, from the Rat's Mouth of Florida to New York City, with surprise siblings and Steve Madden shoes along the way - that this would have been a compulsively readable book no matter what, but when you throw in that Madden is an exceptionally gifted writer on the line level, you have something special here. She is unflinching, emotional, hilarious, in touch with every age of adolescence.
I defy anyone reading this not to fall in love with the author - Madden is someone to root for, and someone who speaks to something desperately needed right now. Singling out individual essays would be foolish, because the united whole is what matters here. This is a memoir to come back to, that rare thing where talent and content unify instead of cancel out. Out this March: be excited for it.
April 6, 2020
Before I read this, I considered myself to be a relatively honest person.
Now I know that I, alongside the global populace excluding T Kira Madden, am a deceitful horrible devilish liar.
This is the most honest book in the world.
With every passing day I grow closer to reading exclusively memoirs, and I have no regrets. What work of fiction can give me the story of Steve Madden’s niece, the at-first-illegitimate daughter of one of the closest allies of the Wolf of Wall Street, as she navigates drugs and crime and family and secret siblings and coming out and love?
And to do so with beautiful, wrenching writing?
And have all of it be TRUE?
By definition, it’s impossible.
I love everyone in this book and I love T Kira Madden and I love her beautiful aching style and I miss reading this already, even though it was often so real and disturbingly immersive that I had to stop reading.
I had to break up a book I thought I’d finish in an afternoon into several days, and that’s a testament to its greatness.
Bottom line: I read a disturbing number of memoirs, and this is one of the best.
----------
"ouch" -my heart
review to come / 4.5 stars
----------
find someone who looks at you the way i look at every single memoir i've ever seen
thanks to the publisher for the copy
Now I know that I, alongside the global populace excluding T Kira Madden, am a deceitful horrible devilish liar.
This is the most honest book in the world.
With every passing day I grow closer to reading exclusively memoirs, and I have no regrets. What work of fiction can give me the story of Steve Madden’s niece, the at-first-illegitimate daughter of one of the closest allies of the Wolf of Wall Street, as she navigates drugs and crime and family and secret siblings and coming out and love?
And to do so with beautiful, wrenching writing?
And have all of it be TRUE?
By definition, it’s impossible.
I love everyone in this book and I love T Kira Madden and I love her beautiful aching style and I miss reading this already, even though it was often so real and disturbingly immersive that I had to stop reading.
I had to break up a book I thought I’d finish in an afternoon into several days, and that’s a testament to its greatness.
Bottom line: I read a disturbing number of memoirs, and this is one of the best.
----------
"ouch" -my heart
review to come / 4.5 stars
----------
find someone who looks at you the way i look at every single memoir i've ever seen
thanks to the publisher for the copy
May 12, 2019
With such raw and emotive prose, reading this book felt like watching a series of bright, vivid movie scenes play one after another. T Kira Madden details her childhood in Boca Raton, Florida, a place of cult-like privilege and crime and extravagance and danger. She writes about her forced foray into independence as the daughter of parents who both dealt with substance addictions, how she faced objectification and formed intense friendships and reckoned with her queer, biracial identity. Long Live the Tribe of Fatherless Girls demands feeling and I commend Madden for communicating emotion so well in this memoir, in particular the fierce longings and the glorious highs and the crashing lows of adolescence.
I feel in the minority in that I did not "get" this book too well. It's definitely a me thing. I think I prefer memoirs with more of a cohesive narrative, with more of the author's insights about and lessons from their experiences drawn explicitly. This memoir's nonlinear structure and the lack of explicit insight made it hard for me to fully connect. Again, though, totally a me thing and perhaps reflective of my incapacity to appreciate the quality of craft as I should. Glad that so many others find this book gorgeous and compelling.
I feel in the minority in that I did not "get" this book too well. It's definitely a me thing. I think I prefer memoirs with more of a cohesive narrative, with more of the author's insights about and lessons from their experiences drawn explicitly. This memoir's nonlinear structure and the lack of explicit insight made it hard for me to fully connect. Again, though, totally a me thing and perhaps reflective of my incapacity to appreciate the quality of craft as I should. Glad that so many others find this book gorgeous and compelling.
August 12, 2021
this book hit me right in the heart.
as madden weaves together events from her childhood (and adulthood), i cry and grimace and ache right along with her. a youth full of longing, and populated with father figures who can't give her what she needs. ouch.
her writing is beautiful, and the essays interconnect marvelously. sometimes something is briefly mentioned in one section, then hits like a gut punch when it's revisited with greater significance later on. absolutely wonderfully done. much admiration for madden's vulnerability and grace.
(p.s: i love that madden references , and later lists drew barrymore in her acknowledgements. fatherless girls providing solace for other fatherless girls 🖤 that's why i'm here)
as madden weaves together events from her childhood (and adulthood), i cry and grimace and ache right along with her. a youth full of longing, and populated with father figures who can't give her what she needs. ouch.
her writing is beautiful, and the essays interconnect marvelously. sometimes something is briefly mentioned in one section, then hits like a gut punch when it's revisited with greater significance later on. absolutely wonderfully done. much admiration for madden's vulnerability and grace.
(p.s: i love that madden references , and later lists drew barrymore in her acknowledgements. fatherless girls providing solace for other fatherless girls 🖤 that's why i'm here)
March 18, 2020
was a breath of fresh air. If you isolate many of its thematic elements and you read a lot of this type of memoir, there's plenty of familiarity - coming of age, coming to terms with queerness, racial identity, sexual assault, trauma, drugs, love, family ties. But T Kira Madden does something completely unique with it, revealing enough of her life to the reader in each chapter to keep us absorbed, yet employing a non-linear structure so faultlessly that its full impact cannot be felt until you turn the final page.
Set mostly in Boca Raton where Madden grew up, chronicles a childhood marked both by privilege and instability (she grew up with many material comforts being related to the Steve Madden shoe dynasty, but under the guardianship of neglectful parents battling addiction). Each chapter, charting a different period of Madden's life, is in its own way fresh, dynamic, and heart-wrenching, but the titular chapter is probably the stand-out - the depiction of the tight bonds of teenage girlhood underscored by Madden's burgeoning sexual awakening made my heart hurt - as well as the final chapter that so brilliantly ties the whole book together.
It's hard to talk about this book without getting into specifics which would neuter some of the impact if you know too much of what to expect, but I can't say enough good things about it and about Madden's prose. It was gentle, visceral, intricate, and structured with a kind of careful deliberation that ultimately elevates what was already going to be an exquisite book.
Set mostly in Boca Raton where Madden grew up, chronicles a childhood marked both by privilege and instability (she grew up with many material comforts being related to the Steve Madden shoe dynasty, but under the guardianship of neglectful parents battling addiction). Each chapter, charting a different period of Madden's life, is in its own way fresh, dynamic, and heart-wrenching, but the titular chapter is probably the stand-out - the depiction of the tight bonds of teenage girlhood underscored by Madden's burgeoning sexual awakening made my heart hurt - as well as the final chapter that so brilliantly ties the whole book together.
It's hard to talk about this book without getting into specifics which would neuter some of the impact if you know too much of what to expect, but I can't say enough good things about it and about Madden's prose. It was gentle, visceral, intricate, and structured with a kind of careful deliberation that ultimately elevates what was already going to be an exquisite book.
December 15, 2019
I loved this - but it is also a memoir that needs the reader to trust the author. T Kira Madden's memoir is impeccably structured in a way that I highly appreciated by the end. She tells of her life in fragments, not always taking time to ground the reader, and some the chapters did not work for me - until the incredible last essay that reframes much of what came before and had me so in awe that I set staring at nothing after finishing the book. For me, the language alone would have been enough to make this a worthwhile read, so much that I didn't mind when the book still felt a bit aimless to me - but wow, that ending. I am still reeling, nearly a month after finishing it. Madden does something clever here that I cannot quite discuss without taking some of the impact away but believe me when I say that I will be reading whatever she puts out next.
Content warning: Sexual assault of a minor, neglect, drug abuse, disordered eating (incl. bulimia), racism, slurs, forced adoption
Content warning: Sexual assault of a minor, neglect, drug abuse, disordered eating (incl. bulimia), racism, slurs, forced adoption
May 27, 2022
❶ ❶ ❶ ❶ ❶ ❶
T Kira Madden’s bold and unsparing storytelling makes for a brutal yet ultimately kaleidoscopic coming of age. This is easily one of the best memoirs I’ve read this year. Madden’s memoir makes for a bittersweet read, one that I look forward to revisiting again.
The chapters within this memoir have an almost episodic quality to them as they transport us to a specific time and or period of Madden’s childhood and later on teenage years. I appreciated the often unresolved nature of these chapters, as Madden doesn’t try to extract moral lessons from her experiences growing ups. During the very first chapter, we understand just how unconventional Madden’s upbringing was. Both of her parents struggled with substance addictions and were possibly involved in something shady. While her parents had plenty of money to spare their parenting style leaves a lot to be desired. Their unstable relationship too sometimes seemed to take priority over Madden’s wellbeing. Madden paints an unflattering picture of herself as a child, as she seemed to have adopted a horse-girl persona that made other children tease or avoid her. Also, growing up biracial in the nineties and Y2K came with a whole lot of racism, bullying, and confusion. Madden grew up in Boca Raton, Florida, a white-majority city. While her mother tethers her to her Chinese Hawaiian heritage, Madden is often made to feel other. Her family situation also makes her feel somewhat separate from her peers. But alongside this pain (over her loneliness, her parents� addictions and toxicity), Madden’s gritty humor shines through, reminding me at times of other media focused on dysfunctional families (such as Shameless). Madden’s recollections of her past and her childhood are incredibly vivid, so much so that I could picture with ease the scenes which she was describing. At times this resulted in me feeling quite uncomfortable given the nature of what was happening (at one point madden decides to remove one of her ). Also, there was quite a lot of second-hand embarrassment which is rather expected given that Madden details those awkward years of transition between childhood and adulthood. Adolescence is hell. Seriously. Madden’s meditations on her changing body were certainly relatable. Madden’s observations on girlhood are piercingly clear. While what Madden is writing about is clearly deeply personal, readers can easily identify themselves with her. Madden’s recollects her first sexual experiences as well as the confusing feelings brought about by her own desire. Madden also details how she was sexually assaulted with unflinching clarity. Her longing to belong, to be loved, to be herself, well, it broke my heart. While she does forge friendships with other ‘fatherless� girls, they also seem to take advantage of Madden (here i was reminded of the movie Thirteen).
Madden’s shifting relationship to her sexuality certainly struck a chord with me. I loved the way she articulates that knowing-but-not-knowing. It was distressing to read of how misattribution leads her to confuse fear with love and of the shame she feels over her sexual desires. Madden is also frank when it comes to portraying the difficulties and intricacies of girlhood. From the all-consuming friendships to the desperate need to be seen as older, mature, adult.
In revisiting her childhood and adolescence we inevitably gain a picture of Madden’s rocky home-life. Her parents� volatile relationship and their struggles with addiction weigh on Madden. But, rather than just reducing her parents to their addictions, Madden makes sure that we see their virtues alongside their vices. While the individuals that emerge are certainly not perfect, they come across as real people. They make mistakes, they fall into bad habits, and their personal crises and dramas often cause them to lose sight of Madden. However, we also see just how deeply they love her, even if their way of expressing this love is somewhat eccentric.
Within this memoir Madden explores her shifting identity growing up, letting us in on some pivotal moments in her childhood and teens. In doing so Madden examines the way American society treats young girls and their sexuality, the many ways in which girls are over-sexualised, the way porn normalizes abuse, and the invisibility and fetishization experienced by Asian American women. Additionally, Madden tackles grief, trauma, belonging, and queerness, in a frank yet poignant way. Her prose is truly illuminating, and I was captivated by her voice within the very first few sentences.
As the daughter of an addict myself this memoir certainly resonated a lot with me.
This memoir was a real banger. While Madden is not afraid to discuss serious and or ‘uncomfortable� topics, her writing is so compelling that I found myself tearing through this. Sad, funny, and sharp, Long Live the Tribe of Fatherless Girls is a lyrical and hard-hitting memoir. I would definitely recommend this to fans of coming-of-ages such as Monkey Beach and hard-hitting memoirs such as Dog Flowers and Crying in H Mart.
“I wanted to be the diametric opposite of who I was; am. To get gone.�
T Kira Madden’s bold and unsparing storytelling makes for a brutal yet ultimately kaleidoscopic coming of age. This is easily one of the best memoirs I’ve read this year. Madden’s memoir makes for a bittersweet read, one that I look forward to revisiting again.
“Did I want to die? Not really, no. I wanted the beauty of the doomed. Missing girls are never forgotten, I thought, so long as they don’t show up dead. So long as they stay missing.�
The chapters within this memoir have an almost episodic quality to them as they transport us to a specific time and or period of Madden’s childhood and later on teenage years. I appreciated the often unresolved nature of these chapters, as Madden doesn’t try to extract moral lessons from her experiences growing ups. During the very first chapter, we understand just how unconventional Madden’s upbringing was. Both of her parents struggled with substance addictions and were possibly involved in something shady. While her parents had plenty of money to spare their parenting style leaves a lot to be desired. Their unstable relationship too sometimes seemed to take priority over Madden’s wellbeing. Madden paints an unflattering picture of herself as a child, as she seemed to have adopted a horse-girl persona that made other children tease or avoid her. Also, growing up biracial in the nineties and Y2K came with a whole lot of racism, bullying, and confusion. Madden grew up in Boca Raton, Florida, a white-majority city. While her mother tethers her to her Chinese Hawaiian heritage, Madden is often made to feel other. Her family situation also makes her feel somewhat separate from her peers. But alongside this pain (over her loneliness, her parents� addictions and toxicity), Madden’s gritty humor shines through, reminding me at times of other media focused on dysfunctional families (such as Shameless). Madden’s recollections of her past and her childhood are incredibly vivid, so much so that I could picture with ease the scenes which she was describing. At times this resulted in me feeling quite uncomfortable given the nature of what was happening (at one point madden decides to remove one of her ). Also, there was quite a lot of second-hand embarrassment which is rather expected given that Madden details those awkward years of transition between childhood and adulthood. Adolescence is hell. Seriously. Madden’s meditations on her changing body were certainly relatable. Madden’s observations on girlhood are piercingly clear. While what Madden is writing about is clearly deeply personal, readers can easily identify themselves with her. Madden’s recollects her first sexual experiences as well as the confusing feelings brought about by her own desire. Madden also details how she was sexually assaulted with unflinching clarity. Her longing to belong, to be loved, to be herself, well, it broke my heart. While she does forge friendships with other ‘fatherless� girls, they also seem to take advantage of Madden (here i was reminded of the movie Thirteen).
“Sometimes I miss them most when we’re all together, when we’re already looking back at the moment, wondering how it will ossify with time, how much more we will know and unknow about each other.�
Madden’s shifting relationship to her sexuality certainly struck a chord with me. I loved the way she articulates that knowing-but-not-knowing. It was distressing to read of how misattribution leads her to confuse fear with love and of the shame she feels over her sexual desires. Madden is also frank when it comes to portraying the difficulties and intricacies of girlhood. From the all-consuming friendships to the desperate need to be seen as older, mature, adult.
In revisiting her childhood and adolescence we inevitably gain a picture of Madden’s rocky home-life. Her parents� volatile relationship and their struggles with addiction weigh on Madden. But, rather than just reducing her parents to their addictions, Madden makes sure that we see their virtues alongside their vices. While the individuals that emerge are certainly not perfect, they come across as real people. They make mistakes, they fall into bad habits, and their personal crises and dramas often cause them to lose sight of Madden. However, we also see just how deeply they love her, even if their way of expressing this love is somewhat eccentric.
Within this memoir Madden explores her shifting identity growing up, letting us in on some pivotal moments in her childhood and teens. In doing so Madden examines the way American society treats young girls and their sexuality, the many ways in which girls are over-sexualised, the way porn normalizes abuse, and the invisibility and fetishization experienced by Asian American women. Additionally, Madden tackles grief, trauma, belonging, and queerness, in a frank yet poignant way. Her prose is truly illuminating, and I was captivated by her voice within the very first few sentences.
As the daughter of an addict myself this memoir certainly resonated a lot with me.
“These hushed years. These secrets of the body. To whom did they belong first? I want to find where it began and say, I’m here now, listening. I want to reach through the years and tell the women I’ve been lonely.�
This memoir was a real banger. While Madden is not afraid to discuss serious and or ‘uncomfortable� topics, her writing is so compelling that I found myself tearing through this. Sad, funny, and sharp, Long Live the Tribe of Fatherless Girls is a lyrical and hard-hitting memoir. I would definitely recommend this to fans of coming-of-ages such as Monkey Beach and hard-hitting memoirs such as Dog Flowers and Crying in H Mart.
January 19, 2022
only on book 3 of 2022 and I’ve already found a favorite of the year :]
4.5 stars, short rtc
4.5 stars, short rtc
January 31, 2019
Long Live the Tribe of Fatherless Girls: A Memoir
This was a quite gritty, but real memoir, written about a young girl growing up in Florida with a mother who was involved with someone else’s husband at first. They eventually got together and married, but it was not an auspicious beginning. The girl seems to grow up under a bit of a cloud, with a mannequin for a housemate and eventually dealing with both parents having sobriety issues. She has two step-brothers but they don’t really become close, mostly visiting at odd school breaks and maybe Christmas break. There’s plenty of money for a good school, but she doesn’t seem to fit in well since she spends so much time alone talking to her store mannequin. She’s not real good at making friends and gets teased a lot. Being bi-racial and beginning to become aware that she likes girls more than guys isn’t helping her popularity either. The book jumps around some, but I found it pretty readable. Perhaps because I grew up in a chaotic household myself where there was alcohol and things got out of control many times. When that’s your normal you can relate. It doesn’t seem strange when the mother keeps wanting to go check to see if the father is at the bar on their way home from school, stopping at the grocery store in the same plaza.
The book follows as they get older and situations happen that get more intense. I won’t give away any more. It’s worth reading, rather different in some ways. I didn’t find it all that humorous, as touted; perhaps sharing the pain of a similar way of growing up with secrets, I feel more the painful side of things, the times that were embarrassing and painful and such. For memoir readers. My thanks for the advance electronic copy that was provided by NetGalley, author T. Kira Madden, and the publisher for my fair review.
3.5 of 5 stars
Also on my BookZone blog:
This was a quite gritty, but real memoir, written about a young girl growing up in Florida with a mother who was involved with someone else’s husband at first. They eventually got together and married, but it was not an auspicious beginning. The girl seems to grow up under a bit of a cloud, with a mannequin for a housemate and eventually dealing with both parents having sobriety issues. She has two step-brothers but they don’t really become close, mostly visiting at odd school breaks and maybe Christmas break. There’s plenty of money for a good school, but she doesn’t seem to fit in well since she spends so much time alone talking to her store mannequin. She’s not real good at making friends and gets teased a lot. Being bi-racial and beginning to become aware that she likes girls more than guys isn’t helping her popularity either. The book jumps around some, but I found it pretty readable. Perhaps because I grew up in a chaotic household myself where there was alcohol and things got out of control many times. When that’s your normal you can relate. It doesn’t seem strange when the mother keeps wanting to go check to see if the father is at the bar on their way home from school, stopping at the grocery store in the same plaza.
The book follows as they get older and situations happen that get more intense. I won’t give away any more. It’s worth reading, rather different in some ways. I didn’t find it all that humorous, as touted; perhaps sharing the pain of a similar way of growing up with secrets, I feel more the painful side of things, the times that were embarrassing and painful and such. For memoir readers. My thanks for the advance electronic copy that was provided by NetGalley, author T. Kira Madden, and the publisher for my fair review.
3.5 of 5 stars
Also on my BookZone blog:
March 27, 2019
This memoir in essays is so incredibly powerful and heartbreaking. I’m in awe of Madden’s raw talent—this beautiful tribute to her complicated family and herself.
The first half of the book buzzes with late 90s and early 00s nostalgia as Madden recalls her middle school and high school years in Boca Raton, Florida. There’s the Juniper Breeze lotion and the Boys 2 Men playing at seventh grade dances and the harrowing ways that vulnerable teenage girls convince themselves that they own even the most traumatic experiences—always desperate to be older and more experienced than they are, no matter the consequences. So much of this was sharply relatable to me, having come of age during the same time and with similar experiences of adolescence
Madden’s parents were addicts in a tumultuous relationship. Her upbringing was rocky and unstable, and as the book progresses and Madden gets older, the focus shifts more toward an exploration of her family past and her recent grief over the death of her father. What could easily devolve into a trite story about forgiveness instead remains something far more raw and real. The narrative is fresh and surprising until the very end. Madden doesn’t have to tell us how she reckons with her past. Instead she continues to show us with poignant vignettes that speak multitudes. She avoids demonizing or glorifying her parents: either would be too easy and obvious, and Madden prefers to keep us somewhere in the messy gray area that’s truer to actual human experience.
I can’t possibly speak highly enough about this masterpiece of a memoir (a genre I admittedly don’t usually love). I’m confident enough to say just a few months into the year that this will be one of my favorite books of 2019.
The first half of the book buzzes with late 90s and early 00s nostalgia as Madden recalls her middle school and high school years in Boca Raton, Florida. There’s the Juniper Breeze lotion and the Boys 2 Men playing at seventh grade dances and the harrowing ways that vulnerable teenage girls convince themselves that they own even the most traumatic experiences—always desperate to be older and more experienced than they are, no matter the consequences. So much of this was sharply relatable to me, having come of age during the same time and with similar experiences of adolescence
Madden’s parents were addicts in a tumultuous relationship. Her upbringing was rocky and unstable, and as the book progresses and Madden gets older, the focus shifts more toward an exploration of her family past and her recent grief over the death of her father. What could easily devolve into a trite story about forgiveness instead remains something far more raw and real. The narrative is fresh and surprising until the very end. Madden doesn’t have to tell us how she reckons with her past. Instead she continues to show us with poignant vignettes that speak multitudes. She avoids demonizing or glorifying her parents: either would be too easy and obvious, and Madden prefers to keep us somewhere in the messy gray area that’s truer to actual human experience.
I can’t possibly speak highly enough about this masterpiece of a memoir (a genre I admittedly don’t usually love). I’m confident enough to say just a few months into the year that this will be one of my favorite books of 2019.
February 25, 2019
‘Focus, he says. Move it. Put the hurt somewhere else.�
.
memoirs have always been my favorite. there is something that feels so healing and honest to me about taking that leap and putting it all out there. it’s an authenticity and an experience i never want to take for granted. Long Live the Tribe of Fatherless Girls by @tkmadden was no exception to this feeling, and is a memoir worthy of all your attention.
.
there was something so fascinating about this reading experience� like Madden has the ability to bring you to the age she was in her stories. you’re invited into her perspective, to see from her point of view, and feel the depth, the weight, and at times, the trauma of her experiences. you get the perspective of a child, navigating the complexities of adult relationships, forced to grow older out of necessity, and doing her best to hold everyone in balance and make sense of her own identity. you travel through each realm of her life, reflecting on the built up memories that shaped her, and for a moment, you’re given the opportunity to reflect on all of the stories you’ve kept secret. with all of the identity exploration in this book� race, sexuality, coming of age realness, blended families, experimentation� and the trauma of sexual assault, addiction, rehabilitation... you can’t help but go through the spectrum of emotions while feeling the weight of each story. T Kira Madden sounds like someone i would want to know, and i feel grateful she has shared a bit of herself with the world.
.
thank you to NetGalley for sharing this one with me!
.
4.5/5 �
.
memoirs have always been my favorite. there is something that feels so healing and honest to me about taking that leap and putting it all out there. it’s an authenticity and an experience i never want to take for granted. Long Live the Tribe of Fatherless Girls by @tkmadden was no exception to this feeling, and is a memoir worthy of all your attention.
.
there was something so fascinating about this reading experience� like Madden has the ability to bring you to the age she was in her stories. you’re invited into her perspective, to see from her point of view, and feel the depth, the weight, and at times, the trauma of her experiences. you get the perspective of a child, navigating the complexities of adult relationships, forced to grow older out of necessity, and doing her best to hold everyone in balance and make sense of her own identity. you travel through each realm of her life, reflecting on the built up memories that shaped her, and for a moment, you’re given the opportunity to reflect on all of the stories you’ve kept secret. with all of the identity exploration in this book� race, sexuality, coming of age realness, blended families, experimentation� and the trauma of sexual assault, addiction, rehabilitation... you can’t help but go through the spectrum of emotions while feeling the weight of each story. T Kira Madden sounds like someone i would want to know, and i feel grateful she has shared a bit of herself with the world.
.
thank you to NetGalley for sharing this one with me!
.
4.5/5 �
May 6, 2019
“When I think of my father, I think of my heart breaking in stages. A dull pain, then piercing. Electric. Still, somehow, gradual.� T Kira Madden [bloomsburypublishing #partner]
last month I read and love T Kira Madden’s Long Live the Tribe of Fatherless Girls
This gem is nothing short of amazing � from the way it was written and constructed. The authors voice is very strong � it commands your attention with every detail. It embodies many things as well � parents whom are addicts, queer awakening, being a female, biracial identity, friendships, assault. I have a special place in my heart for memoirs, especially those that are so candid it awakens something in you.
last month I read and love T Kira Madden’s Long Live the Tribe of Fatherless Girls
This gem is nothing short of amazing � from the way it was written and constructed. The authors voice is very strong � it commands your attention with every detail. It embodies many things as well � parents whom are addicts, queer awakening, being a female, biracial identity, friendships, assault. I have a special place in my heart for memoirs, especially those that are so candid it awakens something in you.
November 28, 2019
T Kira Madden lived a privileged life in Boca Raton, Florida thanks to the wealth made possible by a designer shoe.
Underneath the happy image that included a big house, private schools, and horse trophies, Madden was on her own from a young age while her parents battled addictions and each other. She searched for love and acceptance in destructive places, suffered objectification and ridicule, and faced racism regularly, all while remaining completely devoted to her parents.
Madden's memoir is a brutally honest look at her coming of age, the relationship with her parents, family secrets, identity, and healing from trauma.
Gritty and powerful, Long Live the Tribe of Fatherless Girls is an unflinching look at a young woman who is learning to separate her identity from her family while understanding how the two are inherently linked.
For more reviews, visit
Underneath the happy image that included a big house, private schools, and horse trophies, Madden was on her own from a young age while her parents battled addictions and each other. She searched for love and acceptance in destructive places, suffered objectification and ridicule, and faced racism regularly, all while remaining completely devoted to her parents.
Madden's memoir is a brutally honest look at her coming of age, the relationship with her parents, family secrets, identity, and healing from trauma.
Gritty and powerful, Long Live the Tribe of Fatherless Girls is an unflinching look at a young woman who is learning to separate her identity from her family while understanding how the two are inherently linked.
For more reviews, visit
March 31, 2021
Agh good grief this is raw and gutting and gorgeous. "Unflinching" is a pretty overused word for memoirs, but this one definitely feels that way, staring without blinking down overdoses, coerced teenage blowjobs, intense parental misconduct, the unfathomable cruelty of teenage girls, the tantalizing temptations of money, warped sexual bravado, desperate loneliness, burgeoning queer identity, the chasms of cultural misunderstandings, familial death, and more and more. It's a beautiful devastation and a gasping redemption, and the writing, oh my god! It's really incredible, even when she's just describing the ambient setting, from snow "coming down in great creamsicle smears" to a "nickel-slapping kind of rain with a silver bounce to it" to a streetlight that "glows so close our eyes are gold with it."
My brainfog is too deep to review this properly so instead, here are a few passages I underlined, to give you a sense of T Kira's lush hard language, her brutal stylistic flourishes, and the seething undercurrents you'll be getting into with this:
Did I want to die? Not really, no. I wanted the beauty of the doomed. Missing girls are never forgotten, so long as they don't show up dead. So long as they stay missing.
**
My mother stands in the corner of the balloon basket, all on her own, loving it. She closes her eyes and stretches her arms to feel the first hot slab of sunrise. She looks so peaceful here, just like this, and I know she would jump if she could, if she could do it fast enough, before getting caught and dragged back in by her sneakers. Years later, when she swallows a bottle of pills and survives, I'll wonder if she considers this moment on the balloon—what could have been a sure thing."
**
The blue of sirens whirls and Nelle says Run, run, and the trees turn to coral, we're all underwater, and my body is pulled into Harley's sinking car before we speed off, looking for Monty. He limps out of the woods to the street, bloodied pulp of a body in Harley's headlights. Nelle and I let him lie across our laps as we drive him to a hospital. Smashed ruby of a boy, all those cut-open places—it was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen.
**
Sometimes it feels like we are only this: moments of knowing and unknowing one another. A sound that is foreign until it's familiar. A drill that's a scream until it's a drill. Sometimes it's nothing more than piecing together the ways in which our hearts have all broken over the same moments, but in different places. Sometimes it's realer than that."
My brainfog is too deep to review this properly so instead, here are a few passages I underlined, to give you a sense of T Kira's lush hard language, her brutal stylistic flourishes, and the seething undercurrents you'll be getting into with this:
Did I want to die? Not really, no. I wanted the beauty of the doomed. Missing girls are never forgotten, so long as they don't show up dead. So long as they stay missing.
**
My mother stands in the corner of the balloon basket, all on her own, loving it. She closes her eyes and stretches her arms to feel the first hot slab of sunrise. She looks so peaceful here, just like this, and I know she would jump if she could, if she could do it fast enough, before getting caught and dragged back in by her sneakers. Years later, when she swallows a bottle of pills and survives, I'll wonder if she considers this moment on the balloon—what could have been a sure thing."
**
The blue of sirens whirls and Nelle says Run, run, and the trees turn to coral, we're all underwater, and my body is pulled into Harley's sinking car before we speed off, looking for Monty. He limps out of the woods to the street, bloodied pulp of a body in Harley's headlights. Nelle and I let him lie across our laps as we drive him to a hospital. Smashed ruby of a boy, all those cut-open places—it was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen.
**
Sometimes it feels like we are only this: moments of knowing and unknowing one another. A sound that is foreign until it's familiar. A drill that's a scream until it's a drill. Sometimes it's nothing more than piecing together the ways in which our hearts have all broken over the same moments, but in different places. Sometimes it's realer than that."
February 9, 2020
I'm of two minds on this memoir. The prose style is engaging and first rate. Madden is a natural stylist. But in terms of content, I'm not a fan and I know that's weird because I don't mean to challenge or judge anyone's life experiences. But I'm over reading memoirs about rich people bemoaning their self-inflicted woes. At least 80% of this memoir is the story of rich people (her parents and her) doing incredibly stupid things. It centers in south Florida and focuses quite a bit on private schools entitled kids, the very kids I taught in south Florida the last three years of my career. It's almost impossible to be sympathetic.
I also question whether this is memoir or fiction at times. She tells some incredibly detailed accounts of when she was an extremely young child. Maybe she remembers them, but it's incredible, if so. And she also recounts scenes from her mother's young life as if she were there. Again, fiction?
But the last 50-60 pages recount such an incredible and surprising story that one is sucked right back in. So for me it's 4 stars for prose and 2 stars for content.
I also question whether this is memoir or fiction at times. She tells some incredibly detailed accounts of when she was an extremely young child. Maybe she remembers them, but it's incredible, if so. And she also recounts scenes from her mother's young life as if she were there. Again, fiction?
But the last 50-60 pages recount such an incredible and surprising story that one is sucked right back in. So for me it's 4 stars for prose and 2 stars for content.
September 1, 2024
I know many people have loved this one, but it just didn't do much for me. It's an extremely honest account of her early life into young adulthood, yes, but Madden doesn't take much time to discuss her experiences in between revealing them and so reading this felt like much more like trauma dumping versus understanding, processing, and taking wisdom from her myriad life experiences. I think a good memoir - one you're publishing and selling to an audience - does the latter.
to hear more of my thoughts on this book over on my Booktube channel, abookolive.
to hear more of my thoughts on this book over on my Booktube channel, abookolive.
March 8, 2019
This memoir is everything I search for in writing. Hopeful in spite of loss, redeeming without letting cruelty off the hook, and searching for truth. How do we love people when they continually disappoint us? When they fail us? Are there some people that are impossible to untangle ourselves from, like our parents, our families? Will we always love these people so much? These are questions that have always seemed unanswerable to me. Whether Madden meant to answer or not, I found some responses to those questions, how do we do it...will we do it, in her pages; and the answer was always: you can and you will. �
�
This may not be one of the most objective reviews because I’m projecting my own life, my own experiences into it, but I think many others will also feel the same when reading this book. A sort of distant, but painful familiarity. Madden expertly portrays the experience of being a girl in a world of adults, of not being afforded the chance to truly be a kid in some ways. She does this also with the experience of being an adult coming to terms with the fact that her parents are people too; they have messed up, sometimes in ways that produce dire consequences, but we can still love them and understand that life and love are not always going to be so clear and straightforward. �
�
"For years, the lizard came to me each time I began falling asleep. I couldn’t push it out from behind my eyes � all those lizard movements � the way it had finally trusted me. I thought of the way I had chased it, the blood rush of that. I thought of not much else. A body, severed, does not die right away. It fights, thrashes. Every part of it remembers."
�
This may not be one of the most objective reviews because I’m projecting my own life, my own experiences into it, but I think many others will also feel the same when reading this book. A sort of distant, but painful familiarity. Madden expertly portrays the experience of being a girl in a world of adults, of not being afforded the chance to truly be a kid in some ways. She does this also with the experience of being an adult coming to terms with the fact that her parents are people too; they have messed up, sometimes in ways that produce dire consequences, but we can still love them and understand that life and love are not always going to be so clear and straightforward. �
�
"For years, the lizard came to me each time I began falling asleep. I couldn’t push it out from behind my eyes � all those lizard movements � the way it had finally trusted me. I thought of the way I had chased it, the blood rush of that. I thought of not much else. A body, severed, does not die right away. It fights, thrashes. Every part of it remembers."
June 10, 2020
My review of this will be fairly short since I put it down for pandemic stress reasons and took far too long to get back to it so it's not fresh in my head. This is not the kind of memoir I usually read, it is filled with beautiful prose, it is not focused on a particular story or theme, the style can be extremely disjointed, jumping from one person and time to another. And yet, I really liked it. It may be a fancier memoir than I usually go for, but something about the way Madden connects with the reader really worked for me.
January 22, 2020
Madden writes strikingly about her childhood and young adulthood in a fragmented way that is quite powerful. She veers back and forth between present and past - mixing up the joy and trauma and confusion of her life and bringing the reader along with her.
January 14, 2019
I wish I could give 10 stars. I cried as it ended. A gorgeous and raw book.
May 25, 2023
I saw someone else say this book was honest, and I thought huh, that’s an odd thing to say. How could a memoir be anything but honest? I get it now. Possible RTC
May 31, 2019
A memoir in essays, a memoir in moments, a memoir of courage, a memoir of fearlessness. Writers of colour are redefining the genre and this sits perfectly next to Heavy by Kiese Laymon. I let Madden’s words and experiences wash over me and it was a singular and poignant experience. The structural complexity and layering here are stunningly crafted. Mind blown.
September 27, 2021
OKAY so here's my recipe for reading great books:
1. read brood by jackie polzin
2. make it your whole online personality
3. bully other people into reading it and making a group chat for it
4. do a secret santa styled book swap with said group chat
5. boom you get the perfect book
this was sad and honest and really well written and i loved it
1. read brood by jackie polzin
2. make it your whole online personality
3. bully other people into reading it and making a group chat for it
4. do a secret santa styled book swap with said group chat
5. boom you get the perfect book
this was sad and honest and really well written and i loved it
November 11, 2019
Honest, coming of age memoir full of stories of beauty and ugliness...needed tissues at the end. Full review to come on Book Nation by Jen.
April 8, 2019
This book cut me open.
#1 it's beautifully, poetically, artfully written. T Kira Madden, for a debut memoir - is a fantastic and marvelous writer. I was never bored, I was never thrown off her writing style. It was personal and you could really feel every emotion she went through and every situation she found herself in. Her use of alliteration to punctuate thoughts and her coming back to poignant moments by framing sections and scenes in her life around a few distinct and very particular descriptors and phrases was a powerful writing tool. For example, her explanation of "the spot" and how "she found beauty" - artfully and masterfully crafted segments in the book. I found this effort complex, unique and engaging.
#2 reading this memoir, I really cried for her girlhood and the lives of so many young women battling their way through life with parents who hoard secrets and deal with addiction and abuse in ways that they think are "private" or "shielding" of their children, but are not. It has long-reaching, deep, deep effects that T Kira shares here and dives into so completely that you get not only her viewpoint but those of various girls and boys throughout the story. You get the perspectives of cousins, you get the perspectives of half brothers and sisters. It feels comprehensive but doesn't claim to know more than it does. It resonates a feeling that many kids of parents who are addicts or missing in their lives share. It resonates the feelings of kids who don't know what's going on in their parents' lives, but who know the feeling of neglect that they have to live with or have internalized that feeling of neglect or abandonment.
I don't want to give any of this memoir away. I want to keep it all tied up inside me. I think it's definitely something to experience. I was initially enraptured by the title and titles can be a little deceiving but this one was entirely reflective of the contents and context of the book.
You know, I always wonder what happens to the children of the people caught in the middle of scams and scandals, especially in the wake of the college scams going on currently. What happens to the kids of the mortgage scams? The kids of the Wolves of Wall Street? All those scam-ass men are "family" men, or so they try to portray.. this felt like a peek behind the curtain of how the children of rich "con men" live. Not saying that her dad was a con man, but I mean bro - show me your friends and I'll tell you who you are. Eventually, the mistresses, the side-pieces, the wives, daughters, and sons, are eventually all going to come forward and tell their stories. Long Live the Tribe of Fatherless Girls is more than that, more than the story of being the daughter of a rich, wolf-of-wall-street type drug addict; it's an interesting perspective from a girl who grew up around that crew. A girl who it seems was trying to stay afloat mentally but also drowning her issues and her families issues in a series of ills and vices. Also, it's the story of hearts, youth and one's love for family, being taken advantage of, it's a story about looking for love and comfort and care in many of the wrong places. It's a big, big story.
It was a heavy, highly impactful and powerful read - if you're even slightly interested in the premise or title of this memoir, you should read it.
#1 it's beautifully, poetically, artfully written. T Kira Madden, for a debut memoir - is a fantastic and marvelous writer. I was never bored, I was never thrown off her writing style. It was personal and you could really feel every emotion she went through and every situation she found herself in. Her use of alliteration to punctuate thoughts and her coming back to poignant moments by framing sections and scenes in her life around a few distinct and very particular descriptors and phrases was a powerful writing tool. For example, her explanation of "the spot" and how "she found beauty" - artfully and masterfully crafted segments in the book. I found this effort complex, unique and engaging.
#2 reading this memoir, I really cried for her girlhood and the lives of so many young women battling their way through life with parents who hoard secrets and deal with addiction and abuse in ways that they think are "private" or "shielding" of their children, but are not. It has long-reaching, deep, deep effects that T Kira shares here and dives into so completely that you get not only her viewpoint but those of various girls and boys throughout the story. You get the perspectives of cousins, you get the perspectives of half brothers and sisters. It feels comprehensive but doesn't claim to know more than it does. It resonates a feeling that many kids of parents who are addicts or missing in their lives share. It resonates the feelings of kids who don't know what's going on in their parents' lives, but who know the feeling of neglect that they have to live with or have internalized that feeling of neglect or abandonment.
I don't want to give any of this memoir away. I want to keep it all tied up inside me. I think it's definitely something to experience. I was initially enraptured by the title and titles can be a little deceiving but this one was entirely reflective of the contents and context of the book.
You know, I always wonder what happens to the children of the people caught in the middle of scams and scandals, especially in the wake of the college scams going on currently. What happens to the kids of the mortgage scams? The kids of the Wolves of Wall Street? All those scam-ass men are "family" men, or so they try to portray.. this felt like a peek behind the curtain of how the children of rich "con men" live. Not saying that her dad was a con man, but I mean bro - show me your friends and I'll tell you who you are. Eventually, the mistresses, the side-pieces, the wives, daughters, and sons, are eventually all going to come forward and tell their stories. Long Live the Tribe of Fatherless Girls is more than that, more than the story of being the daughter of a rich, wolf-of-wall-street type drug addict; it's an interesting perspective from a girl who grew up around that crew. A girl who it seems was trying to stay afloat mentally but also drowning her issues and her families issues in a series of ills and vices. Also, it's the story of hearts, youth and one's love for family, being taken advantage of, it's a story about looking for love and comfort and care in many of the wrong places. It's a big, big story.
It was a heavy, highly impactful and powerful read - if you're even slightly interested in the premise or title of this memoir, you should read it.
November 14, 2021
This is not a book for everyone. See content warnings below.
Madden’s parents struggled with addiction since she was a child. She grew up in Boca Raton, FL, and had a twisted sense of love and sex as a tween and teen. This book is only suitable for mature audience, because it was not directly mentioned that some of her childhood values were wrong, that being the target of sex from older boys and men does not mean that you are beautiful or wanted or loved. It is for the readers to infer and understand that it was written in the thoughts of her past self, without judgement.
I listened to the audiobook which Madden narrated. She sounded detached, and it suited the storytelling so well. I love the writing, each story centering around a theme, and rather than telling every scene in chronological order, they were like puzzle pieces that connected through a person, an event, and together made up the bigger picture of Madden’s life, how everything is connected and related and made an impact on her life.
Madden is Hawaiian, Chinese, half-white, queer (with a wife), and Steve Madden’s niece (whom she sold shoes for as a teen).
content warnings: rape, child grooming, pedophilia, exhibitionism, gun, mentions of suicidal tendencies, overdosing, alcohol abuse, addiction (drug & alcohol), mention of semi-public sex, masturbation, racism (against AAPI), racial slurs, teen pregnancy, infidelity, blood, death of family member, homophobia, biphobia, DUI (drug & alcohol), vehicular accident (not DUI)
Madden’s parents struggled with addiction since she was a child. She grew up in Boca Raton, FL, and had a twisted sense of love and sex as a tween and teen. This book is only suitable for mature audience, because it was not directly mentioned that some of her childhood values were wrong, that being the target of sex from older boys and men does not mean that you are beautiful or wanted or loved. It is for the readers to infer and understand that it was written in the thoughts of her past self, without judgement.
I listened to the audiobook which Madden narrated. She sounded detached, and it suited the storytelling so well. I love the writing, each story centering around a theme, and rather than telling every scene in chronological order, they were like puzzle pieces that connected through a person, an event, and together made up the bigger picture of Madden’s life, how everything is connected and related and made an impact on her life.
Madden is Hawaiian, Chinese, half-white, queer (with a wife), and Steve Madden’s niece (whom she sold shoes for as a teen).
content warnings: rape, child grooming, pedophilia, exhibitionism, gun, mentions of suicidal tendencies, overdosing, alcohol abuse, addiction (drug & alcohol), mention of semi-public sex, masturbation, racism (against AAPI), racial slurs, teen pregnancy, infidelity, blood, death of family member, homophobia, biphobia, DUI (drug & alcohol), vehicular accident (not DUI)
January 20, 2019
This book is affecting � it’ll make you cry and laugh—but it’ll also teach you a thing or two. Men need to read this, most of all.
December 31, 2024
undeniably good, but also highly painful? your heart kind of breaks for her
September 24, 2019
In her debut, a memoir, T Kira Madden relates a childhood full of loneliness and confusion but also so much love that it did not destroy her. Reading the book I was aware of it being carefully crafted with the most beautiful language she could create. Without self pity she revealed emotions that both fit her age as she grew while tinging them with the insights she gained from looking back as a grown woman.
I don't want to say more. I knew maybe too much from listening to her interview on the Otherppl podcast before reading her book. So much that I was in doubt about getting into it. As it turned out her style of compiling incidents into vignettes both short and long was a perfect blend of the wonder and the horror of childhood.
Not once did I feel emotionally manipulated nor was I overcome by what she exposes. Perhaps if I knew her personally or was a relative I would have. Instead my heart went out to her. She seems to have come to a place in life free of recrimination. She did mention therapy in her interview, but she clearly never stopped loving either of her parents.
If you decide to read the book, perhaps you will have some of the thoughts and speculations I had concerning this paradox: how some people have had fine, almost idyllic childhoods and grew up to have bad lives while some lived through bad troubles and grew up to find themselves and create good lives. I suppose we are all somewhere on that particular spectrum. It behooves us all to live with tolerance for others, especially our parents and our children.
I don't want to say more. I knew maybe too much from listening to her interview on the Otherppl podcast before reading her book. So much that I was in doubt about getting into it. As it turned out her style of compiling incidents into vignettes both short and long was a perfect blend of the wonder and the horror of childhood.
Not once did I feel emotionally manipulated nor was I overcome by what she exposes. Perhaps if I knew her personally or was a relative I would have. Instead my heart went out to her. She seems to have come to a place in life free of recrimination. She did mention therapy in her interview, but she clearly never stopped loving either of her parents.
If you decide to read the book, perhaps you will have some of the thoughts and speculations I had concerning this paradox: how some people have had fine, almost idyllic childhoods and grew up to have bad lives while some lived through bad troubles and grew up to find themselves and create good lives. I suppose we are all somewhere on that particular spectrum. It behooves us all to live with tolerance for others, especially our parents and our children.
May 26, 2019
I love when this happens in the movies, on TV, in the books I read: a boy comes for a girl and then the father suddenly loves the girl more, steps up, becomes protective. No boys or men have ever desired a fatherless girl. I have always wanted this complication.
T Kira Madden pens a thoughtful collection of essays that is deeply moving and beautiful. She explores the father daughter dynamic in a very interesting way. I particularly loved how she explored the mother daughter relationship as well. So much is unpacked in these pages that will let your head spin.
A very interesting read.
T Kira Madden pens a thoughtful collection of essays that is deeply moving and beautiful. She explores the father daughter dynamic in a very interesting way. I particularly loved how she explored the mother daughter relationship as well. So much is unpacked in these pages that will let your head spin.
A very interesting read.
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