-—-Electric Literature, Entertainment Weekly, Huffington Post, BuzzFeed, The Millions, Hyphen, Lit Hub, Nylon, The AV Club, The Advocate, The Rumpus, The Week, Books are Magic
Long Live the Tribe of Fatherless Girls, a stunning debut, is T Kira Madden’s story. A school girl’s coming of age in wealthy Boca Raton, Florida, the author struggles with her identity and shares with us the good the bad and the ugly. T Kira was born to a white, Jewish shoe developer from Long Island, and a Chinese Hawaiian mother. 'The book I wish I'd had growing up.' -Chanel Miller, author of Know My Name Best Books of 2019: Esquire O, The Oprah Magazine Variety Lit Hub Book Riot Electric Literature Autostraddle Finalist: NBCC John Leonard First Book Prize Lambda Literary Award New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice. Long Live the Tribe of Fatherless Girls, (Bloomsbury) a stunning memoir, is T Kira Madden’s story. A school girl’s coming of age in wealthy Boca Raton, Florida, the author struggles with her identity and shares with us the good the bad and the ugly. 'Long Live the Tribe of Fatherless Girls is a deeply compassionate book, though not an apologetic one. In baring the bad and ugly alongside the good, Madden has succeeded in creating a mirror of larger concerns, even as her own story is achingly specific and personal.' Apr 19, 2019 The tribe of fatherless girls that make up T Kira Madden’s titular chapter are three high school friends bonded by loss, lust, recklessness and love. But the tribe extends much further.
-— Lauren Groff
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.
— Mary Gaitskill 
T Kira Madden Mother
| by T Kira Madden
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▼Tags ▼LibraryThing Recommendations Sign up for LibraryThing to find out whether you'll like this book. No current Talk conversations about this book. Showing 1-5 of 8 (next | show all) I don't often read memoirs and I usually take a longer time to get through them but this was an exception for sure. I really enjoyed Madden's writing style throughout the entire book. I can't exactly pinpoint what I like about it exactly but I did. The book felt incredibly honest and I found my eyes watering at the ending of the memoir. I don't think I've actually felt this way about any other memoirs I've read. Reading about her parents' life, her family and how her journey to discovering herself allowed me to reflect on my own life too. I hope the author would continue writing more and I would probably read anything she puts out! ( ) nikkiyrj | Sep 18, 2020 | This was just gorgeous and lovely. Madden writes about women with a tenderness and affection that makes me love women even more, in all of their flaw and rage. The atmosphere alternates between almost ethereal and then these just blood-chilling moments of that being shattered, a return to harsher reality. Her writing about her father is of course amazing, but I keep returning to the way she write about women and how much I love it; just a care and affection that we see so rarely in writing, and it's so so good. Definitely recommend it for that reason. ( ) aijmiller | Jul 30, 2020 | As I approached the end of this book, I asked myself how I was going to explain why I enjoyed reading it so much. I most certainly wasn't an obvious target for its contents. The author is female, Asian, young, from a reasonably affluent household. I'm white, male, old enough to be her grandfather, and got my brother's hand-me-downs and factory irregulars to wear growing up. And yet, the writing drew me in, incessantly. Was it her candor? Her resilience to her situation? Her adjustments to questionable choices? Whatever it was I was compelled to continue reading it. Maybe, in part, it was how she packaged her narrative, almost like it was a series of short stories, linked together with just enough thread to keep it all connected, and, yet, never losing sight of it being a memoir about growing up, about family. And then... And then, the last chapter just blew me away. While shifting her style yet again, she surprises me...big time. I really am inadequate to articulate what makes this book so good, but what I can do is recommend it and know that acting on that recommendation will be worthwhile. I most sincerely hope you enjoy it as much as I did. ( ) 1larryerick | Jan 24, 2020 | asianamlitfans | Aug 22, 2019 | This style of memoir constructed from essays doesn't really work for me. ( ) NML_dc | Aug 17, 2019 | Showing 1-5 of 8 (next | show all) ▼Published reviews ▼Common Knowledge
References to this work on external resources. Wikipedia in EnglishNone 'The acclaimed literary essayist T Kira Madden's raw and redemptive debut is a memoir about coming of age as a queer, biracial teenager within the fierce contradictions of Boca Raton, Florida, a place where cult-like privilege, shocking social and racial disparities, rampant white-collar crime, and powerfully destructive standards of beauty hide in plain sight. As a child in Florida, T Kira Madden lived a life of extravagance--from her exclusive private school to her equestrian trophies and designer shoes, she had plenty to envy. But beneath the surface, life in 'the rat's mouth' of Boca Raton was dangerous. Left to her own devices as both parents battled drug addiction, Kira navigated the perils of coming of age too quickly, and without guidance--oblivious parents and misguided babysitters at home, tormentors at school, sexual predators at the mall, and the confused, often destructive, desperately loving friendship of fatherless girls. With unflinching honesty and moving, lyrical prose, and spanning from 1960's Hawai'i to the nip and tuck rooms of 1990s Florida to the present-day struggle of a young woman in a culture of harassment, Long Live the Tribe of Fatherless Girls is the story of families both lost and found, unmade and rebuilt, crooked and beautiful' -- No library descriptions found. ▼LibraryThing members' description
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