Long Live the Tribe of Fatherless Girls

Long Live the Tribe of Fatherless Girls

2019 • 336 pages

Ratings9

Average rating3.9

15

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.

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I frequently find myself compelled by trauma/troubled childhood memoirs. This one revealed itself as something far different in its final third, which made it more of a mysterious, gorgeous piece than I initially perceived it as.

June 18, 2019
January 6, 2022

This was a little tough to read at times, but it made me feel seen in so many ways and it made me think. I'd definitely recommend it, but to specific people.

November 27, 2021