First Person

New memoirs plumb art, love, and politics.

Keziah Weir

MARGO JEFFERSON

The Pulitzer Prize winner returns with Constructing a Nervous System, from Pantheon, a tour de force of personal narrative that engages with writers from Willa Cather to Katherine Mansfield, Josephine Baker, "gentlemen-dandies of jazz and cabaret," Ella Fitzgerald, and a wide range of other references and influences.

VALERIE BIDEN OWENS

In Growing Up Biden, out from Celadon, the president's strategist and younger sister describes Joe's "trademark overenthusiasm'' as he introduces her to her future husband; supporting each other through devastating loss; and their political campaigns, failed and victorious.

DELIA EPHRON

When Delia Ephron wrote an op-ed after losing her husband and sister to cancer, a widower reached out; the two soon fell in love. Peter would be at Ephron's side when she received her own dire cancer diagnosis. Left on Tenth,from Little, Brown, chronicles their relationship and her fight for her life.