Publisher: Knopf Publishing Group Page Count: 240 Genre: Memoir Year Published: 2020
Stray is easily one of my most anticipated reads of 2020. I fell in love with Danler’s writing when I read her novel, Sweetbitter, in 2016. This memoir is raw and real and doesn’t attempt to offers answers.
The memoir consists of three parts: (1) mother, (2) father, and (3) monster. Danler’s mother suffers a brain aneurysm and survives, but has brain damage. Danler returns to LA to care for her mother, but their relationship is uneasy, marred by years of unresolved transgressions. Danler’s father is a charismatic, magnetic influence, someone she believed in for years only to discover his addiction to crystal meth is a monster he rarely overcomes. The Monster is a married man with whom Danler has an affair.
The inclusion of the Monster section was brave on Danler’s part. I imagine it’s petrifying to share this story, as you’re opening yourself up to others’ opinions and criticisms, but I found it powerful—to share intimate details of the morally ambiguous moments in our histories that influence our lives in subtle and non-subtle ways. The first two sections make the final section understandable—the relationship is built on a careful balance of what to say when, a strategy that keeps it going knowing it’s likely doomed. Danler’s relationship with her parents has prepared her for this balance. She puts so many boundaries around herself that the happy moments, the good moments, begin to ring false. Danler’s friend says to her, “You fought so hard for this life and now you won’t let yourself have it.” The memoir is an internal reckoning, and I thoroughly enjoyed it.
Read It Like Rory 