Darling Days
A Memoir
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4.6 • 5 Ratings
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
This “extraordinary memoir” from a gender non-conforming child of the ‘80s, is “brave and true, as devastating as it is inspiring.” —Joey Soloway, Emmy-award winning creator of Transparent
Born into the beautiful bedlam of downtown New York in the eighties, iO Tillett Wright came of age at the intersection of punk, poverty, heroin, and art. This was a world of self-invented characters, glamorous superstars, and strung-out sufferers, ground zero of drag and performance art. Still, no personality was more vibrant and formidable than iO’s mother’s. Rhonna, a showgirl and young widow, was a mercurial, erratic glamazon. She was iO’s fiercest defender and only authority in a world with few boundaries and even fewer indicators of normal life. At the center of Darling Days is the remarkable relationship between a fiery kid and a domineering ma—a bond defined by freedom and control, excess and sacrifice; by heartbreaking deprivation, agonizing rupture, and, ultimately, forgiveness.
Darling Days is also a provocative examination of culture and identity, of the instincts that shape us and the norms that deform us, and of the courage and resilience it takes to listen closely to your deepest self. Alternating between the harrowing and the hilarious, Darling Days is the candid, tough, and stirring memoir of a young person in search of an authentic self as family and home life devolve into chaos.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Genderqueer activist and writer Wright (Lose My Number) aims to create the next great New York City memoir, but stumbles along the way. Wright's tale of growing up in Manhattan in the late 1980s and '90s, is in broad strokes a tale of love and loss both referring to her mother Rhonna, a force of nature whose fierce, unconditional love for her child morphs over years to become an abusive, substance-addicted relationship. That chaos bleeds into all theaters (sometimes literally both Wright and Rhonna are performers) of Wright's life. The book's most vital aspect is its exploration of growing up gender-variant, and Wright's passionate descriptions of her fear of gendered bathrooms and locker rooms, self-baffling relationship with sex and sexuality, and attempts to "pass" as a boy from the age of six have never been more timely. The prose is beautiful and aches with emotion. However, Wright may put off her transgender readers with her casual use of transmisogynist slurs. Cisgender readers will derive a great deal of insight into the developing mind of a trans child.
Customer Reviews
Loved loved loved this book
I listened to the Ballad of Billy Balls first and was obsessed with the podcast. Craving more I read Darling Days. Hands down one of the best books I’ve read. It reminded me of Just Kids by Patti Smith with the New York setting, the grit and grim of the book. I read it after having my first child and it hit me so hard. It really captures the nuances of childhood and parenthood and the nuances around substance use. LOVED IT!