Why are we so drawn to difficult childhoods in literature? Do difficult childhoods make for great writers?
There is something cathartic and compelling about reading stories of childhood survival and resilience. At the same time, the “inner child” of the author can speak truth to power and subvert our ideas of family, safety, and love.
These childhood memoirs offer different viewpoints and explore unfiltered experiences of hardship, family dysfunction, and resilience. Yet, they are also full of hope, tenderness, and humour. Some darker than others, here are some compelling memoirs that explore complex childhoods with honesty and depth.
I’m Glad My Mom Died by Jennette McCurdy
The title sets the tone for this brutally honest and hyped memoir. Jennette McCurdy, best known for her role in iCarly, shares her story of a difficult childhood overshadowed by an overbearing and abusive mother, eating disorders, and the pressures and pitfalls of child stardom.
Jennette is a great narrator. She’s direct, clear, and doesn’t get bogged down by the material. There is a good amount of distance and balance in the way she presents her memoir, despite the emotive topic. (Her narration of the audiobook was also really excellent).
Jennette had a really difficult and dark time as a child and young adult and she’s open about her struggles and her thoughts and feelings: it’s amazing how she can access her “child voice” in a way that feels authentic.
There’s also an interesting behind-the-scenes glimpse into the entertainment industry, but at its core, this book is about survival and healing. McCurdy doesn’t pass judgment, she merely describes. And that’s what makes it all the more powerful.
It’s a dark topic, but there’s a lot of empathy, love, and a hopeful message too. It’s very eye-opening memoir.
The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls
Jeannette, New York journalist, tells us the story of her chaotic childhood with her charismatic alcoholic father and her depressive artist mother. Jeannette wants to understand her parents and is especially close with her father. In fact, she’s his biggest champion and she hero-worships him, making his alcoholic abuse even more heartbreaking. Her parents are incredibly complex figures, sketched with love.
Alongside her three siblings, Jeannette is bounced around houses and states in a precarious and semi-nomadic lifestyle, finally settling into a damp and dreary leaking house in West Virginia after a relatively peaceful time in Phoenix. The depiction of poverty, abuse, and deprivation in the house and the surrounding community and school is disturbing and real. This memoir deftly depicts systemic failures and deprived communities alongside its familial narrative.
The childish point of view is vivid: so much disruption and disappointment that Jeannette desperately tries to justify. Her wishful thinking is backed by her indomitable spirit.
Why do these parents keep failing their children? What’s the story behind the father’s alcoholism? Why do people react differently to abuse?
A really beautiful and compelling book, this memoir is also full of dark humour and rare moments of hope.
Unquiet by Linn Ullmann
Unquiet is a deeply moving, layered memoir that explores the narrator’s complex relationship with her parents. Her mother, an absent, glamorous Norwegian actress, and her much older, equally complicated Swedish father, a famous film director, form the heart of the story.
The narrator spends her summers with her father in the Swedish archipelago in Fårö, and it’s these magical yet regimented Nordic summers—an experience I personally relate to—that shape the narrative. She reflects on her bond with her absent yet beloved father, the impact of place on creativity and legacy, and the complexity of family dynamics.
The story delves into her relationships with multiple siblings from different mothers, exploring how love, creativity, and energy helped hold a fractured family together. Her father is a powerful figure around whom the family congregated.
This is also a poignant book about ageing: it leaps from childhood to end of life.
The Sculptor’s Daughter by Tove Jansson
Tove’s Helsinki childhood with her bohemian parents unfurls in this short memoir, depicting her life in an airy art studio home by the harbour.
The parties hosted by her father, the loud drinking and cigarette smoke curling into Tove’s sleeping space, and the stories her mother tells in front of the fire, are perfectly described. You get a real feel for the safe cosiness of the studio, yet there is darkness in the corners.
Tove talks about skating on the ice on the harbour, the deep blackness of the cold sea, the lanterns twinkling at night, the men playing music for the skaters, and that delicious feeling of fear and safety she felt whilst skating on the ice on top of the frozen water, imagining the circle of skaters detaching itself from the surrounding ice, floating out into the deep black sea.
It’s a loving exploration of her parents – you see two people who are flawed yet also loved by Tove. It’s not a sugarcoated or saccharine exploration of childhood, but like other work by Tove, bittersweet.
This series of vignettes was Tove’s first “novel for adults”.
Childhood (Copenhagen Trilogy) by Tove Ditlevsen
A well-known Danish poet and writer, Ditlevsen tracks her life growing up in Copenhagen, grafting, writing, and figuring out relationships across a memoir trilogy.
Childhood is less dark than the two books that come next in the trilogy, yet it also has some shadows and foreshadowing in it too. Ditlevsen feels out-of-sync with her family and her house is filled with secrets and silence. Her parents don’t get along, and her childhood experience feels disjointed and lacking in security.
Unfortunately, her childhood experiences don’t set Ditlevsen up for a happy life and the trilogy gets darker as it goes on. In the end, her childhood memoir ended up feeling more hopeful and nostalgic.
Things I Don’t Want to Know by Deborah Levy
The first book in her “living autobiography” series, this book probes Levy’s childhood in apartheid South Africa, weaving together themes of power, resistance, and exile.
The story is very traumatic and she tells it well, mixing in child and adult perspectives on the subject.
It’s touching, thoughtful, and thought-provoking. It made me think of complicity and agency, of why we love places and why we hate them. Why we leave. Why we run. Why we bury certain things.
It’s a good novel that packs a lot into its diminutive frame. Her writing is sharp, delving into how environments shape identity and how we negotiate memory. This book is not only about childhood but also about the broader social and political forces that shape our understanding of ourselves.
Have you read any of these memoirs? What are your thoughts on childhood memoirs?
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