Small Fry by Lisa Brennan-Jobs is a title I was thrilled to pick up at BEA in May. It has been on my TBR stack for a while, and now because I have been seeing it in the news as it is just being released, I couldn't wait any longer to sit down with it.
I know there is a movie about Steve Jobs as well as a biography that I am still meaning to read, but going in to this book, I really knew very little about this man. The little I did know wasn't particularly good.
Brennan-Jobs is the daughter of Steve Jobs and Chrisann Brennan. Her parents never married and separated soon after her birth. Jobs often denied he was her father, yet would acknowledge her from time to time. Her mother was a hippie and the two moved often.
As Brennan-Jobs got older, Steve Jobs did try to include her in his life and she eventually even moved in with him for a bit while she was in high school, although her main function seemed to be to provide free childcare for her the much younger siblings her father and stepmother had.
Brennan-Jobs moved between her father's world of wealth and her mother's world of struggling to make ends meet, all the while creating a beautiful picture of the California of the 1970s and 80s.
This is an interesting look at an icon in the computer industry, a perspective that only a child could provide. The lasting impression I have of Jobs is that of someone who was brilliant but extremely flawed. And after reading Small Fry, I want nothing more than to read more about this man and better understand him.
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