In our new summer issue, Danielle Henderson (knottyyarn) opens up about tough-love approaches, what she hopes readers will take away from her memoir 'The Ugly Cry,' and more. 'I want them to understand that they can laugh, and then turn a page and cry.'
TV writer and former Rookie editor Danielle Henderson’s new memoir, The Ugly Cry , is a testament to the fact that most childhoods cannot be distilled into pure tragedy or pure comedy. She revisits her curiosity and confusion while coming of age in the ’80s as a Black girl in a white neighborhood in upstate New York, and her recollections oscillate between the tragic , the comic , and the tragicomic .
A lot of the topics you write about are typically discussed in serious tones, like racism and abuse. Why was it important for you to approach these subjects with a sense of humor? I can’t help it! That was a survival instinct that I learned very early on. I think I give those subjects as much gravity as I do humor, but I definitely think some of the things that happened to me are funny. It didn’t feel authentic to ignore the fact that, as hard as my childhood was, there was also a lot of joy and humor to be found there.
ADVERTISEMENT How do you think the tough-love approaches of the women who raised you impact your life today, for better or for worse? It is definitely a balance. I’m grateful for the lessons I learned early on in that tough-love kind of scope, because they prepared me to go out into the world much sooner than anyone I knew. By the time I graduated from high school, I was ready to be on my own. I grew up knowing that I couldn’t depend on anybody but myself, so I’m grateful for that lesson.
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