An important, wholly believable account of how long-buried but profoundly formative experiences finally emerge.
Recovered memories of childhood abuse tear through the fabric of a “perfect” life.
Griffin’s debut memoir begins with a lyrical account of an idyllic childhood in Amarillo, Texas. Her family owned a chain of convenience stores called Toot’n Totum, whose sparkling aisles of colorful products seemed to the young Amy a kind of paradise. “The best things in life weren’t free. They were shrink-wrapped.” From an early age, she loved running, but also felt she couldn’t stop running—as she grew up, she felt both an intense pressure to be perfect and a disturbing sense of disassociation from her own accomplishments. “From the outside, at least, after I married John and we began building our life together, things did seem ‘perfect.’ I was athletic, tall, and blond. John was successful and respected in his career. I got pregnant easily and gave birth to a healthy baby boy, my son Jack.” Three more children followed. She traces the beginning of her understanding that something was wrong to the day her 10-year-old daughter complained that she felt disconnected from her: “You’re here, but you’re not here.” After her husband had a great experience with a mental health practitioner who worked with MDMA, she decided to try it. Very quickly, the walls came tumbling down. Terrible experiences she had in middle school began to play in her head “like I was the only person in a theater, watching a movie projected up onto the screen from the front row.” The remainder of the book describes her attempts to get some kind of closure, but it turns out that the Texas statute of limitations has expired and people she hopes will be able to confirm some part of her story aren’t able to help. In the end, the only relief she can get is from writing it all down—first in detailed journals she kept at the time and now in this book. And though it would sound strange to describe the account of something this dark as “good,” Griffin has indeed validated her experience with a well-written and moving book.
An important, wholly believable account of how long-buried but profoundly formative experiences finally emerge.Pub Date: March 11, 2025
ISBN: 9780593731208
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Dial Press
Review Posted Online: Nov. 23, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2025
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
A determined if self-regarding portrait of a candidate striving to define herself and her campaign on her own terms.
An insider’s chronicle of a pivotal presidential campaign.
Several months into the mounting political upheaval of Donald Trump’s second term and following a wave of bestselling political exposés, most notably Jake Tapper and Alex Thompson’s Original Sin on Joe Biden’s health and late decision to step down, former Vice President Harris offers her own account of the consequential months surrounding Biden’s withdrawal and her swift campaign for the presidency. Structured as brief chapters with countdown headers from 107 days to Election Day, the book recounts the campaign’s daily rigors: vetting a running mate, navigating back-to-back rallies, preparing for the convention and the debate with Trump, and deflecting obstacles in the form of both Trump’s camp and Biden’s faltering team. Harris aims to set the record straight on issues that have remained hotly debated. While acknowledging Biden’s advancing decline, she also highlights his foreign-policy steadiness: “His years of experience in foreign policy clearly showed….He was always focused, always commander in chief in that room.” More blame is placed on his inner circle, especially Jill Biden, whom Harris faults for pushing him beyond his limits—“the people who knew him best, should have realized that any campaign was a bridge too far.” Throughout, she highlights her own qualifications and dismisses suggestions that an open contest might have better served the party: “If they thought I was down with a mini primary or some other half-baked procedure, I was quick to disabuse them.” Facing Trump’s increasingly unhinged behavior, Harris never openly doubts her ability to confront him. Yet she doesn’t fully persuade the reader that she had the capacity to counter his dominance, suggesting instead that her defeat stemmed from a lack of time—a theme underscored by the urgency of the book’s title. If not entirely sanguine about the future, she maintains a clear-eyed view of the damage already done: “Perhaps so much damage that we will have to re-create our government…something leaner, swifter, and much more efficient.”
A determined if self-regarding portrait of a candidate striving to define herself and her campaign on her own terms.Pub Date: Sept. 23, 2025
ISBN: 9781668211656
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Sept. 23, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
It’s not Shakespeare, not by a long shot. But at least it’s not James Franco.
A noted actor turns to verse: “Poems are a Saturday in the middle of the week.”
McConaughey, author of the gracefully written memoir Greenlights, has been writing poems since his teens, closing with one “written in an Australian bathtub” that reads just as a poem by an 18-year-old (Rimbaud excepted) should read: “Ignorant minds of the fortunate man / Blind of the fate shaping every land.” McConaughey is fearless in his commitment to the rhyme, no matter how slight the result (“Oops, took a quick peek at the sky before I got my glasses, / now I can’t see shit, sure hope this passes”). And, sad to say, the slight is what is most on display throughout, punctuated by some odd koanlike aperçus: “Eating all we can / at the all-we-can-eat buffet, / gives us a 3.8 education / and a 4.2 GPA.” “Never give up your right to do the next right thing. This is how we find our way home.” “Memory never forgets. Even though we do.” The prayer portion of the program is deeply felt, but it’s just as sentimental; only when he writes of life-changing events—a court appearance to file a restraining order against a stalker, his decision to quit smoking weed—do we catch a glimpse of the effortlessly fluent, effortlessly charming McConaughey as exemplified by the David Wooderson (“alright, alright, alright”) of Dazed and Confused. The rest is mostly a soufflé in verse. McConaughey’s heart is very clearly in the right place, but on the whole the book suggests an old saw: Don’t give up your day job.
It’s not Shakespeare, not by a long shot. But at least it’s not James Franco.Pub Date: Sept. 16, 2025
ISBN: 9781984862105
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Aug. 15, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
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