The 50 Best Memoirs of the Past 50 Years

"I only remember women," wrote Vivian Gornick at the beginning of her thesis on the growth of homes in the Bronx in the 1940s, surrounded by fiery, ardent and ardent women in the neighborhood, including her indomitable mother. "I took them as I would put chloroform on a cloth on my face, it took me 30 years to understand what I understood."

When Gornick's father died suddenly, he looked in the coffin for so long that he had to be carried away. This intrepidity is enough for this book; impeccably corrects all that is hidden, difficult, strange, insoluble in itself and in others - loneliness, sexual malice and the devouring and cloistered closeness of mothers and daughters. The book is motivated by Gornick's attempts to free himself from the suffocating suffering of his home - first through sex and marriage, then later and more reliably through the life of the spirit, the "glamorous society" of ideas. It is a portrait of the artist when he finds a language - original, allergic to euphemism and therapeutic platitudes - worthy of the women who raised him. - Parul Sehgal

I love this book - even when I want to shout to Gornick, these are the times when she becomes the hypercritical woman, constantly disappointed, who, by her words and example, taught her to be the author. There is a clarity in these memories so brilliant that it disturbs; Gornick finds a degree of freedom in her writing and feminist activism, but even then, she and her mother can never let go. - Jennifer Szalai

Gornick's tongue is so fresh and frank. it's a typical American voice and beautiful. The confidence of his tone in "Fierce Attachments" reminds me of Saul Bellow who wrote in the front lines of "The Adventures of Augie March": "I learned myself, in free style, and I will record it at my way." - Dwight reap

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