The Elder Millennial’s Memoir - Addendum

A 20 Year Work-In-Progress

(Author’s Note: a few were not actually written by Millennials, but recommended by them!)

Troubled: A Memoir of Foster Care, Family, and Social Class, Rob Henderson, 2024. This was #1 on my 2024 Christmas Reading List. After reading the book, I listened to the entire audiobook on day 2 of “Robert’s Ride” fundraiser, where I cycled from D.C. to the Indiana Dunes over 10 days. Rob was so gracious to share with me his book proposal, and he did a Zoom call with me from an Airbnb in NYC on his second day after returning to the U.S. from years across the pond in Oxford. His book agent, Dylan Colligan from Javelin, is also an amazing person who has given me way too much free advice. I am deeply indebted to my cycling brother Brady for making that introduction back in May of 2023.

Motorhome Prophecies: A Journey of Healing and Forgiveness, Carrie Sheffield, 2024. I read this because of Carrie’s conviction to use her book to spread the word of Christ. Sincerely appreciate her sharing her book proposal. It was a real treat to meet her in person recently during a trip to D.C. She has a great Substack and continues to impress me with her work.

Rust: A Memoir of Steel and Grit, Eliese Colette Goldbach, 2020. This book would have done much better had it not come out a week before COVID started. Her experience in the steel mills of Cleveland is 100% spot on from my own as a contractor of Indiana Harbor Works. I also appreciated her battle with Bipolar Disorder, where I saw similarities to my own mother’s challenges. I emailed her a few times, but never heard back.

Between Two Trailers: A Memoir, Dana Trent, 2024. Read this one because Dana is a fellow Hoosier. Appreciated that despite moving away, her books pay homage to Indiana and its people, who made her into the person she is today. I have yet to meet her, but we have had some good interactions on social media.

Leaving Cloud 9: The True Story of a Life Resurrected from the Ashes of Poverty, Trauma, and Mental Illness, Ericka Andersen, 2018. Enjoyed this “third-party” memoir about her husband. Ericka is a fellow Hoosier, took the first crack at editing my book proposal, and offered the critical feedback I needed from a faith-based perspective. Ericka has a new book, Freely Sober: Rethinking Alcohol Through the Lens of Faith, coming out Jan 6, 2026.

Heartland, Sarah Smarsh, 2018. While the book has unnecessary political commentary and what I consider to be the OG “counter memoir” to Hillbilly Elegy, I really value Sarah’s commentary about how folks that “use their hands” are devalued in the U.S. She mentions the book took her 15 years which gives me confidence that sometimes a good work product takes a while. In 2024, she released a collection of her previous writings in Bone of the Bone: Essays on America by a Daughter of the Working Class.

Reprogramming the American Dream: From Rural America to Silicon Valley―Making AI Serve Us All, Kevin, Scott, 2020. This is another book that I believe underperformed because of its release during COVID. I read it because J.D. Vance wrote the foreword, but also enjoyed the pivot from memoir to policy prescriptions in the technology space that should help the Rust Belt.

Eyes to the Wind, Ady Barkan, 2019. It's an intriguing memoir of a progressive millennial political activist, but I read it because of his raw accounting of dealing with ALS. Ady passed away from the disease in 2023 and was just two years older than me, a further reminder that your life can turn on a dime at a moment's notice.

Holler Rat: A Memoir, Anya Leftig, 2023. Like J.D. Vance and me, Anya spent her summers in Kentucky, so I found her dual life as a Jew from Connecticut to be a fun read. Thankful she took the time to do a Zoom call with me, whereas she sold her book to a publisher on the manuscript alone without a proposal, which is pretty rare.

Educated: A Memoir - Tara Westover, 2022. A NYT Bestseller, I was interested in the family dynamics of those living a fairly isolated lifestyle and how those people break out of a small world culture and upbringing. Her mom’s 2020 counter memoir, Educating, is a reminder that family may not like your story, and to acknowledge that we all have different perspectives from experiencing the same events.

Rivethead: Tales from the Assembly Line - Ben Hamper, 1991. Since my Dad was laid off by U.S. Steel in the 80s, I wanted to understand the perspective of someone who lived and experienced the manufacturing decline of that decade. Ben’s crass language is something I can relate to as a steel kid.

Clear Springs: A Family Story - Bobbie Ann Mason, 1999. This selection was based on the fact that Bobbie writes about a story of a Kentucky farm family and her focus on heritage, place, and family roots. I see many similarities between her family legacy and my own.

Shortest Way Home: One Mayor's Challenge and a Model for America's Future, Pete Buttigieg, 2019. Read this because Pete is a fellow Hoosier, and we both have a lot of local government experience. This was written with presidential ambitions in mind, and his dark-horse run for DNC chair was the most ingenious way to short-circuit the brand-building process on a national level.

The Glass Castle: A Memoir, Jeannette Walls, 2006. The Google algorithms brought this one to me. It shows the talent of a father who, when sober, really empowered his kids. I like the depth of family loyalty in this one, but it also shows how the lack of family stability and location affects children.

The Liar’s Club: A Memoir, Mary Karr, 1995. Another book brought to me by the internet because it’s one of the OG books that helped establish the memoir category. To be honest, I never finished the book because I was more interested in her 2015 release, The Art of Memoir. That book was very helpful when it comes to dealing with family, lawsuits, and other implications related to “tell-all” types of stories.

Hard Lessons from the Hurt Business: Boxing and the Art of Life, Ed Latimore, 2025. Years earlier, I read Ed’s self-published Not Caring What Other People Think Is A Superpower: Insights From a Heavyweight Boxer (2017) and Sober Letters to my Drunken Self (2018). Ed was gracious enough to send me his book proposal, which landed him a handsome book advance. It was good to finally meet him in person as I stopped in Pittsburgh during my relocation from DC to Indiana in December 2024. I let him release a guest post on my Substack when his book came out as a way to say thank you.

All Over but the Shoutin’, Rick Bragg, 1998. Read this per the recommendation of a book agent Dylan Colligan. Bragg details his upbringing in rural Alabama, his mother's sacrifices, and his journey from poverty to becoming a celebrated writer for The New York Times. The book is a tribute to his strong mother, who worked tirelessly to support her three sons, and explores themes of poverty, family, class, and the power of perseverance and storytelling to overcome adversity.