Reading order
| # | Title | Published | Author | Buy on Amazon |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Stray | 2020 | Stephanie Danler | Buy |
Stray, published in 2020, is Stephanie Danler’s memoir about going back to California to face the family she left behind. After the success of Sweetbitter and a period of personal upheaval, Danler returned to the landscapes of her childhood to reckon with her parents’ drug addiction, her fractured family, and the emotional inheritance she had been carrying.
The book is structured around place as much as time, moving between California locations that hold specific memories. Danler writes about difficult material with the same precision she brought to Sweetbitter’s restaurant scenes, finding the exact physical detail that makes an emotional truth feel concrete. Stray was well received as a follow-up that showed a different side of Danler’s writing.