entering fall

just some celebrity memoirs and baldwin essays

September slipped by so quickly. A month that is typically experienced in a constant state of anxiety from a new school year starting - either one I was partaking in as a student or as a teacher- was instead spent meandering about, engaging in unbelievably unemployed behaviour. Last September, I broke out in a rash on my face and body and was devastatingly exhausted from trying to adjust to commuting three hours a day to teach my 200+ students dance at a high school, the majority aged 12 to 14. I shudder to think of it now and am actually amazed at my mental fortitude. Of course, I can’t imagine doing it now because I’ve been doing a whole lot of nothing but Hanging Out and Having a Good Time.

I wish I could say I read more amidst all of it, but I only managed to finish three books in September!

I did finally make my return to the memoir this month, though.

The first post I made on my book review Instagram was about celebrity memoirs. After finishing my master’s degree in critical theory, I wanted to experience reading for the pure pleasure of it again, and memoirs were my book of choice. I’m a nosy gossip; I love pop culture and also enjoy knowing everything that has ever happened to everyone, so, of course, memoirs are one of my favourite genres.

But after reading Britney Spears and Pamela Anderson’s memoirs, The Woman in Me and Love, Pamela at the end of 2023, I realized I had grown tired of reading about celebrities’ lives through their lens that doesn’t offer any true critique of the culture of celebrity, and I hadn’t read one since.

Instead, I got really into my favourite and only podcast I will ever listen to - Eating For Free, hosted by Matthew Lawson and Joan Summers, who cover topics in pop culture with an incredibly insightful and hilarious eye. My favourite episodes are their Child Star Hell series, which began with Justin Bieber and Selena Gomez, and continued with their 6-part series on Ariana Grande and the 9-part series on the Jonas Brothers: “The Chastity Crusade.”

I only stumbled upon my first book of the month, Shari Franke’s The House of My Mother, after looking up recently released memoirs, hoping for some quick reads for the month. I can’t believe I had never heard or encountered anything about the Franke’s before this, but since Shari Franke is the first social media child star to write a memoir, I had to read it.

If you’re like me, Shari Franke is the eldest daughter of the “8 passengers” family, a Mormon family who rose to popularity in the late 2010s through their day-in-the-life vlogs, spearheaded by the mother, Ruby Franke. Ruby eventually became involved with Jodi Hildebrandt, the certifiably insane “ConneXions” cult leader and eventual accomplice in the horrific child abuse of Ruby’s 2 youngest children. Ruby & Jodi were arrested in Utah in 2023 on multiple counts of aggravated child abuse.

In her memoir, Shari Franke details the way her mother, Ruby Franke, dominated and controlled the household through emotional and physical abuse and exploited her children for profit. After their YouTube channel stopped being profitable, Ruby became increasingly close with cult-leader Jodi Hildebrandt, who only amplified Ruby’s narcissism and abuse tactics.

When reading, I took into consideration that Shari Franke is only in her early 20s, meaning not only were Ruby and Jodi arrested just 2 years before the release of this memoir in January of this year, but she is also just a few years into being an independent adult. She is still a student of BYU and involved in the Mormon church, which is not surprising considering it is her whole culture and what she has always known. But, I hope she can one day realize in her healing journey that it is the existence and power of the Mormon church that permitted the exploitation and abuse she has lived through to occur.

There are, of course, multiple documentaries and YouTube video essays on the case, and I think it’s important to read Shari Franke’s own words in accompaniment to these.

And another former child star memoir right after! Alyson Stoner’s, Semi-Well-Adjusted Despite Literally Everything was released just this August. The child star trifecta - family violence and trauma, religious trauma, and eating disorders were present.

There were some cringey moments and poor writing choices, as I expect in most celebrity memoirs. The last line of the book is literally the title, which was hard to stomach. Still, Stoner is vulnerable, self-aware, and critical of the industry and culture of celebrity, and they included enough industry gossip that I was captivated enough to read it in a couple of days.

Towards the end of the novel, Stoner advocates for legislation to protect children in the industry, including children on social media, as there are even fewer protections in place for children exploited for family vlogs and parenting content. While Stoner hopes their memoir will be one of the last from a child star, Shari Franke’s memoir proves that there will definitely be an influx of social media child stars exposing their parents’ abuse as they age into adulthood.

I read Giovanni’s Room, Go Tell it on the Mountain, and If Beale Street Could Talk last year, and I consider them some of the best books I have ever read. If I’m going to claim James Baldwin is one of my favourite authors, I knew I had to read some of his non-fiction, as the majority of his published works are essays.

I began with his 1963 short essay collection, The Fire Next Time, which includes “My Dungeon Shook: Letter to my Nephew on the One Hundredth Anniversary of the Emancipation” and “Down at the Cross: Letter from a Region of My Mind,” which takes up the majority of the book.

Baldwin is one of the most essential writers in American history, and essential reading in understanding race relations in America. This was apparent to me from his fiction, and now even more so after this essay collection.

“And if the word integration means anything, this is what it means: that we, with love, shall force our brothers to see themselves as they are, to cease fleeing from reality and begin to change it. For this is your home, my friend, do not be driven from it; great men have done great things here, and will again, and we can make America what America must become. It will be hard, James, but you come from sturdy, peasant stock, men who picked cotton and dammed rivers and built railroads, and, in the teeth of the most terrifying odds, achieved an unassailable and monumental dignity. You come from a long line of great poets, some of the greatest poets since Homer. One of them said, The very time I thought I was lost, My dungeon shook and my chains fell off.

You know, and I know, that the country is celebrating one hundred years of freedom one hundred years too soon. We cannot be free until they are free. God bless you, James, and Godspeed.

Your uncle,

James”

His semi-autobiographical book, Go Tell it on the Mountain, is one of my favourite books ever, and I loved that it was contextualized further for me as Baldwin details his religious upbringing in Harlem in the essay collection, and why he turned to religion as a teen.

I also found his essay collections, No Name in the Street (1961) and Nobody Knows My Name (1972) used at BMV books, and once I read those, I think I’ll begin to have a true insight and knowledge of his writing and ideas, as well as a much deeper understanding of America - which I have really come to enjoy reading fiction about. Blood Meridian, East of Eden, and Baldwin’s Go Tell it on the Mountain and If Beale Street Could Talk provide such deep, rich insight and context into the history and culture of the United States.

“We are controlled here by our confusion, far more than we know, and the American dream has therefore become something much more closely resembling a nightmare, on the private, domestic, and international levels. Privately, we cannot stand our lives and dare not examine them; domestically, we take no responsibility for (and no pride in) what goes on in our country; and, internationally, for many millions of people, we are an unmitigated disaster.”

So far, I’ve finished 4 books in October, including a few short story collections and more memoirs, and I’m determined to get through a couple more before the month is over.

It is also crucial to mention here that the third and final season of The Summer I Turned Pretty concluded in September. After binging season two in one sitting and tuning into the week-by-week release of season three, I, amongst other adults, were bewilderingly sucked right into the insane drama of the show.

Conrad’s painful yearning towards Belly, as she continued to fall deeper and deeper into the trenches with his brother Jeremiah, had me hooked right in. The culmination of everything in the final episode - Conrad finally going after Belly a year after she ran away to Paris- was everything. The tension, the yearning, UGH. I love love! I will be watching that movie as soon as it comes out.

I know The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City started airing in September, but I’m saving my thoughts on that for October’s review post. I have way too much to say because I also started watching New Jersey in October….