Small Fry: A Memoir

If you look at the memoirs on best-seller lists, they fall into three groups: those about celebrities, those that recount traumatic experiences, and (this is the smallest group, with the lowest sales figures) those that are literary gems which tell of no major upheavals but are so well-observed and beautifully told that they illuminate our own lives.
Small Fry, by Lisa Brennan-Jobs, has elements of all three. That is both its particular charm and its weakness. It’s not by a celebrity, but a celebrity’s daughter. Steve Jobs is one of the most fascinating individuals of the past decades. We read the book in part for the peek into his private life. But it wasn’t easy being Steve Jobs’s daughter. So this is also the tale of a show more difficult childhood.
Unlike many celebrity memoirs, this wasn’t ghost-written. Ms. Brennan-Jobs has written it, and parts of it are written very well. She is observant; at times, she seems to notice too much specific detail at too young an age. Much of the detail is brought in a way that appears unconnected to the incidents it accompanies. For instance, she meets her mother for lunch. Her mother starts to verbally abuse her, and Ms. Brennan-Jobs gets up and walks out. On her walk home, she describes how she avoids the cherry-sized gum fruit on the sidewalk. My reaction was that the author was applying the lessons of a writing course (“What did you see? Describe it”). But a person with more experience of trauma than I pointed out to me that this is a vivid example of the disassociation that the victim of abuse goes through.
Beyond the talent for description, Ms. Brennan-Jobs has also structured some elements of the book exceedingly well. If you’ve read any reviews of this book when it came out, you probably know that the last time she saw her father, he told her, “you smell like a toilet.” On its own, this is an example of the insensitivity that Jobs often displayed. But the line serves effectively as the climax of an account that had taken the whole of the first chapter. A recurrent theme is introduced in that chapter. It is an understandable behavior flaw in the author that comes full-circle at the end of the book: a perfectly-constructed arc. show less

I thought this was a fascinating look at the real Steve Jobs as seen through the life and experiences of his daughter Lisa Brennan-Jobs. This would be a good read even if her father was not one of the most famous people of our time, because Lisa can really write. Her descriptions of the landscapes, people, and places are vivid and original. She describes her thoughts, recounts conversations and emotions authentically and skillfully. What saddened me was how Lisa just wanted Steve to love her and acknowledge her as his daughter, and it takes nearly the entire book before she gets some recognition from him. So this is both a coming-of-age memoir and a portrait of the co-founder of Apple, a beautifully written story of family, love and show more identity. show less

"Lisa?"
"Yeah?"
"You smell like a toilet."
---
Lisa Brennan-Jobs is Steve Jobs' eldest child, the one he didn't mean to have with his high school girlfriend and the one he spent years denying was his. But regardless of what Steve Jobs intended, Lisa Brennan-Jobs is here, and she has an awful lot to say.

Small Fry is a stunning memoir, in large part because Brennan-Jobs is an astonishing writer. She deftly captures emotion and description in the loveliest of words, painting a complex picture of a childhood spent circling an enigmatic and difficult father.

There's a bit of a cult of personality surrounding Steve Jobs, in part because he died so young, but largely because he encouraged and developed that cult as part of his business model. In show more the seven years following his death, Hollywood has produced two movies about his life (I've seen neither but one was apparently very good, and the other starred Ashton Kutcher). I never subscribed to that cult. I've only been aware of Steve Jobs as a tech company figure on par in my general interest with Bill Gates, which is to say pretty low. So while I have no doubt that plenty of people will enjoy Small Fry for the salacious details on such a famous modern figure (he made his teenage daughter hand wash the dishes instead of fixing the dishwasher! he wouldn't buy a sofa! He kicked his daughter out of the house because she wouldn't go to the circus with him!), that wasn't really the main draw for me.

Because honestly, you could enjoy Small Fry entirely divorced from the concept of Steve Jobs as a famous figure. Because Small Fry isn't about growing up as the daughter of a minor celebrity. It's about growing up as the daughter of a very difficult person who wasn't ready for parenthood and demonstrated that lack of readiness in spades. It's a universal story, and that makes it memorable.

I think Small Fry will stick around in the cultural memory. I hope it does. And I hope Brennan-Jobs continues to write. She has enormous talent. show less

As I read Lisa Brenna-Jobs' memoir of growing up with a famous, but emotionally withholding father (the "genius" Steve Jobs), I found myself wondering how she made it out of her childhood, not only alive, but seemingly well adjusted. I also wondered who was worse: her feckless mother or her manipulative and emotionally stunted father. In the end, I landed on the latter.

Brennan-Jobs' mother is narcissistic and unwilling to work at any kind of practical job that will provide a living for herself and her child. She bounces from one man to another, all the while maintaining the laughable fiction that she is an artist. However, she is not purposely cruel and she does love her daughter.

The same cannot be said for Steve Jobs who denies show more paternity until faced with DNA evidence and then demands slavish devotion to himself and his twisted idea of family loyalty. All the while he is deliberately and sadistically cruel. He has a photographer come to take a family portrait for Christmas cards and makes Brennan-Jobs step out of the picture. He asks her to accompany himself and his wife to a wedding in Napa, but when they arrive, she is told she is just there to babysit her toddler half brother. And finally, he refuses to pay the tuition for her last year at Harvard and lets a generous neighbor pick up the tab.

Brennan-Jobs herself is a joy. At times terribly needy, but also smart and resourceful. It was wonderful to see her grow as her book progressed. I hope we hear a lot more from her in the future. show less

Lisa Brennan-Jobs had quite an unconventional upbringing. Her mother was a dedicated but impoverished artist; her father, Apple founder Steve Jobs, was a multimillionaire who at best only grudgingly acknowledged paternity. Despite the instability of her home life, Lisa emerges as a bright, sensitive girl of whom any father would be proud. I found this memoir engaging, but emotionally taxing. It is filled with example after example of how Jobs was a jerk. It got to be a bit much after awhile. I could only read it in small bites.

This is truly is such a great book that writing a review is difficult.

Told from the perspective of Lisa Brennan-Jobs, this is the story of her mercurial relationship with her famous father, Steve Jobs. While her father, the creator of the Mac Apple computer, and creative consultant of Pixar movie studios, became a mega millionaire, Lisa and her mother often lived without food and shelter. Roaming from one place to another, their existence was fraught with despair and longing.

Originally, when her father discovered her impending birth, he wanted nothing to do with her or her mother. When her mother finally was able to obtain support money, Jobs made sure that his lawyer drew up, and had the papers signed the day before his company went show more public, thus immediately rendering him a mega millionaire for the rest of his life, while keeping his illegitimate family always on the fringe.

Hauntingly beautiful, Lisa tells of the hippie style life her mother and father lived when they met. After years of abandonment, he sporadically showed up at the latest residence her mother could afford and took Lisa with him for short periods of time.

As the years progressed, her father decided to invite her to his luxurious mansion in the hills of California. Consistently referring to her as "Lis," his mood swings and temperamental behaviors left Lisa never knowing what way the wind would blow, or what small incidental event provided an opportunity for him to lash out with purposeful hate while spewing vile, exceedingly nasty, diatribe mental comments to any one in his path.

Always knowing she was on the outside, while desperately craving his attention, that attention came sporadically, and at times inappropriately crude. As Jobs married and had three other children, the hurt became more extreme, and once she overheard one of her step sisters refer to her in public as "my father's mistake." Job's website mentioned a wife and three children. For all to see, Lisa his first of four, was not included.

When Jobs knew he was dying, he verbally tried to assuage his guilt while telling "Lis" that he knew that for many years, he wasn't there for her, and now it was too late. On his death bed he repeatedly told her "I owe you one." Lisa knew "One" would never be enough!

Exquisitely written, hauntingly told, this is a compelling story of a brilliant and very emotionally troubled man. show less

Rounded up from 3.5 stars because it was well written, kept me going the whole way, and wrapped it up with redemption. I read it because I had read Isaacson's biography of Steve Jobs - so I knew he was an a$$ and wanted to know what that kind of cruelty would do to a child. I imagine it was cathartic to write - but I worry that the author has burned just about every personal bridge she had....