Enough About Me: 12 Exciting Upcoming 2022 Memoirs
Do you like memoirs? Well, then hold on to your butt, because there are SO many amazing memoirs being released this year. Today I am going to tell you about 12 exciting upcoming 2022 memoirs you’re going to want to add to your TBR right now. Actors, athletes, doctors, politicians, authors — these are just a few of the professions held by the people with memoirs coming out this year.
I am fairly certain that you could read a 2022 celebrity memoir every day this year and not run out. I would have been writing this for weeks if I tried to include them all! Some of the biggest, easily recognizable names with memoirs coming out that I couldn’t squeeze in include Jennifer Lewis, Selma Blair, Jennifer Grey, Minnie Driver, and Paul Newman. (I can’t wait to read what Grey says about filming Dirty Dancing! Dish on Patrick Swayze, please.) Some of the most incredible memoirs I have read have come from celebrities. In fact, my favorite memoir is Rat Girl by musician Kristin Hersh.
But whether you read memoirs for the hot goss, or a shocking story, or to learn more about the world and the people in it, this list has something for everyone. And who knows? Maybe some day, I’ll be reading your memoir.
Ten Steps to Nanette: A Memoir Situation by Hannah Gadsby (Ballantine Books, March 29)
Beloved star Gadsby discusses the defining moments in her life that led to the creation of Nanette, her multi-award-winning special about growing up in Tasmania, the sexual abuse she experienced, and her rejection of self-deprecation and misogyny.
Easy Beauty: A Memoir by Chloé Cooper Jones (Avid Reader Press, April 5)
Pulitzer Prize finalist and philosophy professor Jones was born with a rare congenital condition called sacral agenesis. This affects her walk and causes her physical pain. She discusses what it is like to go through life being stared at, being pitied, being thought of as “less than,” and how unexpectedly becoming a mother changed her relationship with her body and the world.
Bomb Shelter: Love, Time, and Other Explosives by Mary Laura Philpott (Atria Books, April 12)
The wonderful author of I Miss You When I Blink is back with a new collection infused with wit, heart, and humanity. This collection centers around our inability to be prepared for every little thing that will happen to us, no matter how much we try.
Constructing a Nervous System: A Memoir by Margo Jefferson (Pantheon, April 12)
Jefferson’s first memoir, Negroland, was about growing up Black and affluent in America. This time around, she uses influences that have shaped her throughout her life, from family to musicians to athletes to writers, to construct a memoir of her years.
Finding Me: A Memoir by Viola Davis (HarperOne, April 26)
The incredible Davis has won roughly a billion awards for acting in such things as Fences and How To Get Away with Murder. In Finding Me, she gets candid about her rise to stardom from her humble beginnings in Rhode Island. And she hopes to inspire other people to follow their dreams and hold on tight.
Burn the Page: A True Story of Torching Doubts, Blazing Trails, and Igniting Change by Danica Roem (Viking, April 26)
Roem is the nation’s first openly trans person elected to U.S. state legislature. This is her story about running against Virginia’s anti-LGBTQ 26-year incumbent Bob Marshall, and how she prepared for the election by hiring someone to dig up all her dirt. She also talks about why more people need to run for office, even if they don’t have a spotless past.
Fruit Punch: A Memoir by Kendra Allen (Ecco, July 5)
And this is a beautiful memoir about identity and growing up Black in America. Allen recounts her life in Dallas, Texas, and attending her family’s Southern Baptist church. She discusses the complexities of America and how her environment affected her ideas about race and class. And just look at that amazing cover!
The Man Who Could Move Clouds: A Memoir by Ingrid Rojas Contreras (Doubleday, July 12)
This is a memoir from the author of the amazing novel Fruit of the Drunken Tree! It’s a look at Rojas Contreras’s family, and her life growing up amid the political violence of 1980s and ’90s Colombia. Her family was full of magic, including her fortune-telling mother and her grandfather, who was the community healer. She writes about them, “the secrets,” and the trip she took back to Colombia with her mother years later.
Crying in the Bathroom: A Memoir by Erika L. Sánchez (Viking, July 12)
And here’s another amazing memoir from an author with a wonderful novel! I Am Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter, Sánchez’s debut novel, was a National Book Awards finalist. Now in this memoir-in-essays, she turns her attention to telling her own story of growing up the daughter of Mexican immigrants in Chicago in the ’90s.
Scenes from My Life: A Memoir by Michael K. Williams, Jon Sternfeld
It’s sad to say that this is a posthumous release. Williams, a brilliant actor of stage and screen, passed away in September of 2021. Before he died, he had nearly finished writing the story of his life, from his childhood in East Flatbush and his years as a dancer, to the fight that scarred his face, to his breakout role as Omar in The Wire, and his struggles with addiction.
Friends, Lovers, and the Big Terrible Thing: A Memoir by Matthew Perry
It’s seems incredible, but with this book, Perry becomes the first cast member from the mega-hit show Friends to write a memoir. Perry’s love life and struggles with substances have fueled the pages of tabloids for decades. Now he’s candidly telling the story of his life as it has really happened. *Chandler Bing voice* Could we be any more excited?
Private Equity: A Memoir by Carrie Sun (Little, Brown and Company, November 15)
Carrie Sun was in her 20s when she graduated from MIT and landed a position with an investment firm on Wall Street. An immigrant from China who grew up in the Midwest, she wanted to be a part of the world of high finance and rise to the top. But the deeper she got into the thankless, time-consuming, white male-dominated world, the more she began to wonder if she should get out instead.
For more fun reading about memoirs, check out Who Owns Your Story: The Ethics and Legality of Memoir and On Slowing Down with Graphic Memoirs: Rereading the Favorites I Devoured.
