Book Review: Long Live the Tribe of Fatherless Girls: A Memoir

T. Kira Madden tells the tale of her experience as a queer, biracial woman coming to terms with her identity in a heartbreakingly beautiful manner in her memoir entitled Long Live the Tribe of Fatherless Girls. The ‘tribe’ that Madden refers to in the title of her memoir refers to her three school friends, all facing the trials and tribulations that come along with growing up as a girl in the 90’s and early 2000’s.

The memoir is arranged into three chronological sections, which allows the reader to follow Madden’s life starting from her early childhood to the death of her father at the age of twenty-seven. The story begins by giving us a glimpse of the apartment that Madden shares with her mother and uncle Nuke, a mannequin that she confides in with her deepest thoughts and desires.

Born to her parents, a Jewish father, and a Chinese-Hawaiian mother, Madden had a difficult relationship surrounding her personal identity from the start. While she grew up wealthy due to her father’s success, allowing her to have access to private schools and horses, she and her mother also had to deal with the struggle of her father’s alcoholism. His rampages oftentimes resulted in brutal beatings for her mother. Because of her parents’ unstable relationships, she had an altered view of friendship and interpersonal relationships, resulting in her struggle to find true friends.

Eventually, she finds refuge for a brief amount of time in a small group of girls who pronounce themselves to be a “tribe of fatherless girls”. Her relationship with these girls, while not long-lasting, gave her the affection she so craved and revealed Madden’s queer longings to herself. It wasn’t until she moved to New York City as a teen that she was able to pursue queer relationships, but her time with these friends allowed her to discover and develop her own sense of identity.

Madden writes in striking detail, describing her agoraphobic father as his “knuckles bulging like popcorn” when her mother surprises him with a hot air balloon ride. It’s this absolutely salient detail that causes the scenes and thoughts she describes to render the reader almost speechless, as she details her experiences with sexual assault and her sense of a lack of belonging in an absolutely heartbreakingly poignant way. Her experiences written in such raw detail reflect the situations that young girls will oftentimes go through, regardless of social class or family background.

Madden’s novel is not something to be read quickly in one sitting but should be read slowly over time, so the reader can fully digest her story. Her story is one of an American having to discover her queer identity while navigating life as a bi-racial female and dealing with the prejudices that come along with that. It’s both a love story and also is a story about girls developing into women as they face a society that seems dead-set against them. Most of all, it is a compelling read that leaves you longing for more, not merely because of these important themes, but because of the way that Madden weaves her words with intense detail.