Stray

March 15, 2020
A writer's memoir of familial dysfunction and addiction. Despite the breakthrough success of her debut novel, Sweetbitter (2016), Danler's life remained very much up in the air in her early 30s. Her mother was an alcoholic and never quite recovered from a brain aneurysm that nearly killed her. The author's father was a drug addict, frequently relapsing and largely unemployable. He had left the household when she was a toddler, and she had lived with her increasingly alcoholic and abusive mother until she was 16, when she was shipped to the father, who provided no supervision. In college and early adulthood, Danler did all she could to sever ties with both of them and entered a marriage that seemed doomed from the start. She cheated on him, and when the marriage ended, she explained to her friend Carly, "I just want more....Once Carly figured out that I was self-destructing with no plan, nerves frayed by lust, she was concerned." Will this "stray" ever find some sort of stability? "There is nothing falser to me than a story that ends with catharsis," she writes. "Loving liars, addicts, or people who abuse your love is a common affliction....No one taught us how to trust the world, or that we could, so we trust no one. We've never developed a sense of self." Danler's first memoir is as well-written as her novel was, but it can be as frustrating for readers as it was for her friends and family--indeed, as it was for the author herself--to watch her going back and forth with the married lover she calls the "Monster," with whom she ended things for good countless times. She seems to have a more stable, somewhat tepid relationship with another man, referred to as "the Love Interest." Toward the end, she tells herself, "You have to make a change," and perhaps she will. A mostly moving text in which writing is therapeutic and family trauma is useful material. Most readers will root for Danler. (first printing of 100,000)

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May 1, 2020

All memoirs are inherently self-regarding, and we must examine our own lives and actions to grow as people. However, Danler's (Sweetbitter) memoir crosses the line into narcissism. It is full of laments about the two men she is simultaneously involved with; references to all the decadent meals she will never eat again (we are not told why); and stories about her charming but crumbling Laurel Canyon home, which is somehow connected to Fleetwood Mac. Because of these supposed burdens, and because of her parents' divorce, her strained relationship with her parents, and because of her own divorce, she would like readers to feel as sorry for her as she feels for herself. She would like us to believe that her life has been tragic when really it has been one of relative privilege, with none of its setbacks being out of the ordinary. VERDICT Though there may be interest owing to the author's high-profile first book, this too often self-indulgent memoir does not serve to enlighten readers about Danler's experience or life in general. [See Prepub Alert, 11/25/19.]--Derek Sanderson, Mount Saint Mary Coll. Lib., Newburgh, NY

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April 15, 2020
Early in this memoir, Danler (Sweetbitter, 2016) establishes, "I made up stories from the minute I could speak." This skill for storytelling, readers learn, would help her survive and make sense of challenging experiences, and gifts her writing with an exhilarating readability and sense of plot. She divides the memoir into three parts: Mother, Father, and Monster. With each short chapter labeled with its location, most in the Southern California homeland she's just returned to following her divorce, Danler knits together the stories of her long-divorced parents and the effects of their addictions on her self-formation. She keeps a strong tie to the present throughout, and to the Monster, as she calls the married man she loves, as she anticipates the publication of her first novel, passes her days writing in her Laurel Canyon cottage, and gets to know the puzzlingly sweet Love Interest. Acknowledging both the tribute of memory and the mercy of forgetting with one distinctive voice, this is a rare and skillfully structured view of an artist's love, grief, and growth.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2020, American Library Association.)

Starred review from May 25, 2020
Novelist Danler (Sweetbitter) returns to her hometown of Los Angeles and comes to a reckoning in this forceful, eviscerating memoir. Her three-part narrative—Mother, Father, Monster—creates a domino effect of abandonment and humiliation as those she loves topple her. “People often act against common sense when they’ve fallen in love with a fantasy,” she writes, describing both the tumbledown Laurel Canyon cottage she rents with the advance on her first novel and her disillusionment with her parents and the married lover she calls the Monster. Danler, writing in precise, elegant prose, outlines her family’s disintegration: her father left his wife, Danler, and her sister as young girls; her mother worked and raised the children as she slid into alcoholism and began to physically abuse her daughters. Sent to live with her disinterested father in Colorado, Danler quickly realized “he couldn’t love anyone” yet “was charmed by his cruelty.” Self-destructive relationships followed, including the unavailable Monster, “a colonizer... who declares ownership without concrete investment in the country.” As the publication date of her debut novel drew near, a friend’s comment—“You fought so hard for this life and now you won’t let yourself have it”—propelled her to sever connections with all three and instead establish “tiny building blocks of trust” in loving, enduring relationships. The result is a penetrating and unforgettable tale of family dysfunction.