Celebrity memoirs are having a moment. Britney Spears, Paris Hilton, Jessica Simpson, Prince Harry. They’ve all risen above the tabloid fodder with revelatory tellings of their own lives. Celebrity mother memoirs, however, have remained in the bargain basement of cash-grab dregs — see Lynne Spears and Eminem’s mum selling their own children down the river. Tina Knowles has raised the bar with Matriarch: A Memoir.
Yes she’s the mother to Beyoncé and Solange, two of the most celebrated women on the planet. But this is about so much more than the women she raised. Growing up in poverty on Galveston Island, Texas, segregation and racism touched every aspect of her girlhood.
