Reviews with content warning for Sexual assault - Long Live the Tribe of Fatherless Girls

Long Live the Tribe of Fatherless Girls is a memoir by T Kira Madden, which because of how it is divided into parts and chapters, some in very different styles, reads a lot like a collection of essays. The reader understands that Madden was motivated to write this memoir in response to her father's death when she was 27, but it is mostly to do with her childhood and adolescence in Boca Raton, Florida.

The out-of-wedlock daughter of a Chinese Hawaiian mother and a white Jewish father, Madden's parents married when she was young. Her father's family was very wealthy, so Madden grew up riding horses and going to prep school, but she was bullied for her race and her awkwardness. Both her parents struggled with substance abuse, which only got worse as she grew older; at the same time, her father's family/business partners were involved in a major scandal. Her tween and teen years were largely unsupervised and she got into plenty of bad situations herself before moving to New York for college.

The last few sections of the book cover her adulthood, as she forms a relationship with the older half-brothers from her father's first marriage, and discovers more about both of her parents' histories following her father's death.

I found Long Live the Tribe of Fatherless Girls to be a difficult read because so much of what happened to Madden as a child is really upsetting. The honesty of the memoir was striking, but it felt like digesting a long string of terrible facts without any emotions or framing. We don't get much about how T Kira Madden felt during or about all of these things - everything is presented in a very pared-back, straightforward way, perhaps because she was a child at the time and didn't know better or understand why she should be upset? But I wish we had gotten more of an insight into her thoughts.

It's especially jarring because towards the end, when we actually get a bit more of her reactions to things (as an adult), it's clear that she really loves both of her parents, and it's hard to reconcile how she was able to forgive them for their neglect and go on to have a healthy relationship with them as an adult. She goes from not understanding her parents substance abuse, or at most being resigned/blandly disappointed by it, to loving them as an adult; it felt like we skipped over the anger, disappointment, hurt etc. that surely must have been part of her aging process.

This book gets a 3.5 instead of a 3 from me because I thought it was well written, and I really did enjoy the last Part, when we learn more about her family history.

I was really surprised about the reveal of her having an older sister and their whole reunion was super touching, although I couldn't help but wonder about the differences in their lives - I assume Marjorie had a more stable childhood than T Kira, and it would have been interesting to get some reflection on that from the sisters. Is it more worth it to grow up knowing your parents, or to grow up feeling safe at home? etc.

That part felt like it had a narrative flow and a clear authorial perspective, which was refreshing after so much of the book felt like a detached list of one disturbing memory after another.

To be honest, I might not have finished this if I weren't reading it for a book club, but I'm glad I did. I feel like my reaction to it might partially be me missing the point or being unwilling to internalize just how dangerous some parents can be. It was well written but I wish I'd gotten more of the author's feelings and reactions throughout the story. A challenging read because of the content, but probably worth picking up if you like less traditional formatting and/or memoirs.

Content Warnings

1quillb's review against another edition

Go to review page

challenging emotional reflective fast-paced

5.0

Content Warnings

whimsicalish's review

Go to review page

emotional hopeful inspiring reflective slow-paced

4.0

This will encourage me to check memoirs for content warnings. That 's really on me.

But I do appreciate the honesty, even if it was difficult to read.

Content Warnings

jarku's review against another edition

Go to review page

adventurous emotional hopeful reflective slow-paced

3.25

Content Warnings

yomireads's review against another edition

Go to review page

challenging dark emotional reflective sad

3.5

I'll state straight away, my bad for not checking content warnings.

This book is deeply painful and unflinchingly honest about very difficult things, and I was not the target audience for this story. Having said that, I appreciate and applaud the courage and skill of this memoir. It's a beautifully written and powerfully moving story that I believe needed to be told. I know there are many who will benefit from reading this and feel seen, connected to, and unalone in these pages.

For my part, I found the nonlinear storytelling to be confusing and quite hard to keep straight in my mind as far as who was alive, when events happened relative to one another, and the relative age of anyone at any given moment. I was deeply disturbed by the graphic depictions of her sexual assault, but feel uncomfortable truly criticizing it as I know feeling disturbed is a part of what is meant to be evoked, and any victim should be permitted to claim their story and find strength in it however they can.

All else that might have made me squirm, I have no true qualms as far as the memoir goes, as a critique of non fiction, by its very nature, can't be about story content. It's about a life, and no outside observer/reader can truly say what deserves to be included in that realm.

Content Warnings

aislina's review

Go to review page

dark emotional reflective medium-paced

5.0

Content Warnings

More...