"My dad tried to kill my mom," I told him.... Even though I didn't know what happened, I knew that he had wanted her dead.

How do we grapple with generational trauma when memories are contradictory or corrupted? By dissecting the chaos of their family history, Doc McLemore pens a brave telling of tenderness in the face of violence. This turmoil, punctuated with bursts of revelry and laughter, shapes McLemore's story: They and their mother must squat in an abandoned house when their stepfather abruptly files for divorce following their mother's hysterectomy. During a party, McLemore serenades a cowboy on horseback as their inebriated father threatens their husband-to-be with a knife—and then gifts the weapon to him as an act of reconciliation. After not speaking for years, McLemore and their half-sibling, drunk and stoned, get the same corny tattoo their father bears on his chest, all to sidestep acknowledging their shared emotional scars.

McLemore supplements sharp prose with photos, journal entries, medical records, and court documents to simultaneously piece together an understanding of their parents' obscure lives and delineate their own past and future. McLemore also unpacks their personal struggle with addiction and ill-fated marriage while articulating their trans identity, offering a groundbreaking perspective on the intersections of self-discovery, mental health, and trauma. Someday We Won't Remember This ultimately dares to ask: How does a child become a whole person? What does it mean to become?