Stray: A Memoir

by Stephanie Danler

Available May 19, 2020

From the bestselling author of Sweetbitter, a memoir of growing up in a family shattered by lies and addiction, and of one woman’s attempts to find a life beyond the limits of her past. Stray is a moving, sometimes devastating, brilliantly written and ultimately inspiring exploration of the landscapes of damage and survival.

After selling her first novel–a dream she’d worked long and hard for–Stephanie Danler knew she should be happy. Instead, she found herself driven to face the difficult past she’d left behind a decade ago: a mother disabled by years of alcoholism, further handicapped by a tragic brain aneurysm; a father who abandoned the family when she was three, now a meth addict in and out of recovery. After years in New York City she’s pulled home to Southern California by forces she doesn’t totally understand, haunted by questions of legacy and trauma. Here, she works toward answers, uncovering hard truths about her parents and herself as she explores whether it’s possible to change the course of her history.

Lucid and honest, heart-breaking and full of hope, Stray is an examination of what we inherit and what we don’t have to, of what we have to face in ourselves to move forward, and what it’s like to let go of one’s parents in order to find peace–and a family–of one’s own.

Praise for Stray

“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.” —Annie Bostrom, Booklist

“I read Stray on the edge of my seat. This is a story of triumph: the triumph of grit, talent, grace, and beauty over the dark pull of inner demons. I’ll be thinking about the courage it took to write this book for a long time to come.”  —Dani Shapiro, author of Inheritance

“In Stray, Stephanie Danler has created a compulsive, neck-breaking masterpiece. It is pleasurable and full-throatedly sensual beyond words. The abounding pain is unsentimentally rendered but mind-blowingly felt. It’s a dark and hot book, a violently provocative one. But it is also quiet, tender. Ultimately this is a kind writer and on every page there is hope.”  —Lisa Taddeo, author of Three Women

“Danler’s first memoir is as well-written as her novel was . . . [A] moving text in which writing is therapeutic and family trauma is useful material.”  —Kirkus Reviews

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

STEPHANIE DANLER is a writer based in Los Angeles, California.