Like you’re in bed and she, chin propped in her hand, asks you: Want to hear a secret? Yes, in fact, you do. Reading Madden’s coming-of-age memoir feels like pillow talk. “I’ve had to create this removal of sorts, almost like disassociating from my body as a means of self preservation.” Every question that Madden’s asked, she rips off the Band-Aids she pours on the iodine of exposure and analysis until she can no longer feel the sting. “I have to talk about my mother’s overdose constantly, my sexuality constantly, my father’s absence and neglect.” It doesn’t feel entirely healthy. “It’s been like therapy ad infinitum,” Madden says, of the responses to her tell-all book. Which is perhaps why it takes me almost an hour in her home, spewing questions on grief and exes, to realize that she’s tired. Now we’re sprawled on her living room rug, and although we just met 45 minutes ago, from her book I could tell you: the story of her first kiss, the story of her first assault, the torments of her grade school bullies, the torments of her teenage crush. She traveled the country to promote her debut memoir, Long Live the Tribe of the Fatherless Girls. T Kira Madden has just returned from a 24-city book tour. Then you field questions from some schmuck who knows nothing about you, except for all of your childhood traumas.

You’re held to a standard nothing short of judicial: the whole truth and nothing but the truth.

You exhibit your fears in high-definition. You divulge your insecurities, every character flaw and body part you’d rather will away. Sure, you could say that the process is rewarding - but it’s equal parts excruciating. Billed Into Silence: Money and the Miseducation of Women.

Emma goldberg life on the line