“As clear-eyed, amusing, honest, unsentimental, and sad as any memoir I’ve read in years.
The prose sparkles, the vision behind it is ruefully compassionate and wise. No other book or film has captured Steve Jobs as distinctly as this one has. The love between father and daughter, thwarted and baffled as it often is, comes through beautifully.”—Phillip Lopate
Lisa Brennan-Jobs’s SMALL FRY (Grove Press; ISBN 978-0-8021-2823-2; September 4, 2018; Hardcover) isa captivating coming-of-age memoir by the daughter of artist Chrisann Brennan and Apple founder Steve Jobs.
Told for the first time in her own words, SMALL FRY is Brennan-Jobs’s poignant story of growing up as the child of one of the most fascinating and complex men of his time. Hers was a unique childhood spent with artists and visionaries, nerds and hippies, in a rapidly changing Silicon Valley. Scrappy, wise, and funny, young Lisa is an unforgettable guide through her parents’ disparate worlds.
Lisa grew up between homes that were geographically close but had starkly different atmospheres. There was the house of her young, hippie mother, Chrisann Brennan—who struggled with money and put her daughter above everything—and there was the glamorous and unpredictable realm of her father—who had a strict code of conduct and a stringent diet, talked frankly about sex, and insisted on family loyalty.
Lisa writes,
He asked me, abruptly, “Are you going to write about me?”
“No,” I said.
“Good,” he said, and turned back to face the television.
As she got to know her father, Lisa was ushered into a new world of mansions, vacations, and private schools. His attention was thrilling, but he could also be distant, critical, and impulsive. When Lisa’s relationship with her mother grew strained in high school, she decided to move in with her father full time, hoping he’d become the parent she’d always wanted him to be.
“Lis,” he said in tender moments, “you’re gonna remember this.” And she has.
Part complex family portrait, part love letter to California in the late seventies and eighties, SMALL FRY is a vibrant, original memoir by an insightful new literary voice.