Memoir - Quillette

A crowded street in which protestors hold umbrellas.

The Evisceration of Hong Kong

From laissez-faire to lèse-majesté: an embarrassment in four fits.

Geoff Privisant

11 Feb 2025 · 13 min read

A family photo collage featuring a happy girl toddler in a summer dress and black and white photos.

The Baby Gate. A Memoir.

So that’s how a fatherhood ends. A few UPCs, like those you find on packs of toilet tissue, delivered via email.

Steve Salerno

8 Nov 2024 · 23 min read

Sonny Side Up

Al Pacino’s personal life has been a bit of a train wreck, but his new memoir leaves no doubt that acting has been the most important thing in his life.

Kevin Mims

28 Oct 2024 · 21 min read

A Half-Serious Man

Boris Johnson got a couple of critical things right, but he never could or would have become a good prime minister.

John Lloyd

22 Oct 2024 · 12 min read

Sin and Social Science

Glenn Loury’s startlingly frank confessional memoir offers a complex portrait of a brilliant scholar and a profoundly flawed man.

John Lloyd

24 Jun 2024 · 14 min read

Stephanie Hayton and her spouse, now named Debbie, photographed in 1995 during a visit to a relative’s home in York.

Transition and Apostasy: A Wife’s Perspective

The wife of a biologically male transsexual explains how she helped her gender dysphoric spouse look beyond the simplistic slogans offered by online activists.

Stephanie Hayton

31 Mar 2024 · 10 min read

Mystic Without a Church

Werner Herzog’s new memoir provides a look back on the magisterial and occasionally maddening career of a cinematic visionary.

Jaspreet Singh Boparai

28 Mar 2024 · 17 min read

Clearing Out My Father’s Office

Reflections on a vibrant scientific career cut short.

Geoffrey C. Kabat

29 Sep 2023 · 15 min read

For a Time, a Pit Bull Gave Me Back My Son

If I couldn’t openly love him, I would love what he loved.

Steve Salerno

8 Sep 2023 · 12 min read

Memories of a Childhood Arcadia

For two four-year-old Ontario boys growing up in the 1950s, a backyard creek became the site of unforgettable adventures.

Herman Goodden

16 Aug 2023 · 7 min read

My Journey Out of Extremism

And how I became a small-l liberal.

Richard Hanania

7 Aug 2023 · 11 min read

Broken Incentives

The media’s incentives may be broken, but we as individuals do not have to be.

Claire Lehmann

11 Nov 2022 · 12 min read

Next Year in Provence

After my parents’ divorce, my mother complained a lot about small-town life in Cobourg, Ontario. For many locals, I learned, the feeling was mutual.

Leah McLaren

25 Aug 2022 · 9 min read

When my mother called me in from play one afternoon to meet the man seated in our living room, her introduction was redundant—I immediately knew who he was. And, right off, I did not like him. His absence had been a painful matter in my life. The house that

John Washington

21 Mar 2022 · 13 min read

An Englishman in Russia Bids His Daughter Farewell

I am an Englishman in Southern Russia. For nearly four years I’ve lived here, helping my Russian ex-partner bring up our (now) eight-year-old daughter. At 9 o’clock last night I saw both of them onto a sleeper-train to Moscow. From there they will fly to Italy and the

Robert Ginzburg

28 Feb 2022 · 6 min read