My Ear at His Heart
By Hanif Kureishi

I think Kureishi is one of my favorite British writers. This is a memoir of how he came to his profession, and it begins with him finding an abandoned manuscript of his father's. Kureishi's mother was an Englishwoman, and his father had emigrated from India with dreams of literary acclaim (which never happened). I've come across mother-daughter memoirs, but there's something about male relationships that feels more secret and less familiar to me.