Small Fry, by Lisa Brennan-Jobs

Unhappy childhoods seem to make for riveting memoirs, and Apple-founder Steve Jobs’ eldest daughter, Lisa’s, tale is a good example of the genre.  Jobs and his girlfriend, Chrisann Brennan, were high school sweethearts who reconnected after Jobs dropped out of Reed College, pretty much just long enough for Lisa to be conceived and born.  After selecting the name Lisa for her, Jobs left, denying his paternity, as he would for several years.  Both Jobs, whose life has been well chronicled elsewhere, and Brennan, had odd upbringings themselves, which perhaps unsuited them to parenthood.  Lisa recounts her mother’s struggles to raise her alone, with no or little financial support from the increasingly famous and wealthy Jobs.  When Jobs slowly came back into her life, and later she began to live with him part of the time, he continued to be emotionally distant, parsimonious, and often out-right abusive.  This is the story of how Lisa survived her chaotic upbringing and found her own way in the world.  Depressing but hard to put down.    381 pp.