First published 2025
Gabrielle Hamilton built a successful career as a chef and bestselling author after growing up as the youngest of five in a family that prized nonconformity above all else. Her parents radiated charisma and rejected conventional ways. Her siblings thrived on mischief and dramatic flair. The family operated by its own rules and rituals, bound together by shared disdain for ordinary life. But their fierce independence eventually pulled them apart. Hamilton found herself estranged from everyone she once idolized. Two brothers died, one by suicide, one suddenly. For thirty years, Hamilton saw her mother only twice. When her mother's health declined and Hamilton was called to provide care, she faced a reckoning. She began examining her family's mythology with surgical precision, dissecting the beliefs that had both shaped and destroyed them. Through this psychological investigation, Hamilton discovered the hidden costs of their celebrated individualism and found unexpected freedom in understanding the truth about the people who made her.
Genres: american-fiction, autobiography, biography-memoir, 21st-century
Vibes: emotional, intimate, thought-provoking
Tropes: estranged-family, found-family
Period: 21st-century
288 pages · Hardcover · Random House
Content warnings: death, mental-illness, suicide