Next of Kin: A Memoir

Synopsis

An electrifying memoir about the demise of a singular family—a stunning new book by Gabrielle Hamilton, author of the New York Times bestseller and James Beard Award winner Blood, Bones & Butter&“You won&’t be able to put down Gabrielle Hamilton&’s story of the excitement, resilience, agony, and defiance required to be a member of her family. She doesn&’t mess around.&”—Ariel Levy, author of The Rules Do Not Apply&“We were a family veined through with certain brutalities, rifts, and unresolved conflicts, as well as some remarkable violences and some decades-long silences. But together we had rituals, systems, congruent cohering events that made us who we were as one. I thought of the black and blue marks as if they were the desirable spores of mold found in noble cheeses.&”The youngest of five children, Gabrielle Hamilton took pride in her unsentimental, idiosyncratic family. She idolized her parents&’ charisma and non-conformity. She worshipped her siblings&’ mischievousness and flair. Hers was a family with no fondness for the humdrum.Hamilton grew up to find enormous success, first as a chef and then as the author of award-winning, bestselling books. But her family ties frayed in ways both seismic and mundane until eventually she was estranged from them all. In the wake of one brother&’s sudden death and another&’s suicide, while raising young children of her own, Hamilton was compelled to examine the sprawling, complicated root system underlying her losses. She began investigating her family&’s devout independence and individualism with a nearly forensic rigor, soon discovering a sobering warning in their long-held self-satisfaction. By the time she was called to care for her declining mother—the mother she&’d seen only twice in thirty years—Hamilton had realized a certain freedom, one made possible only through a careful psychological autopsy of her family. Hamilton&’s gift for pungent dialogue, propulsive storytelling, intense honesty, and raucous humor made her first book a classic of modern memoir. In Next of Kin, she offers a keen and compassionate portrait of the people she grew up with and the prevailing but soon-to-falter ethos of the era that produced them. A personal account of one family&’s disintegration, Next of Kin is also a universal story of the emotional clarity that comes from scrutinizing our family mythologies and seeing through to the other side.

Copyright:

2025

Book Details

Book Quality:

Publisher Quality

Book Size:

288 Pages

ISBN-13:

9780399590108

Related ISBNs:

9780399590092, 9780593150146, 9780593150153

Publisher:

Random House Publishing Group

Date of Addition:

10/14/25

Copyrighted By:

Gabrielle Hamilton

Adult content:

No

Language:

English

Has Image Descriptions:

No

Categories:

Nonfiction, Biographies and Memoirs, Parenting and Family, Psychology

Submitted By:

Bookshare Staff

Usage Restrictions:

This is a copyrighted book.