Momentum: A Memoir

Description

“A luminous, courageous memoir of belonging, resilience, and deeply transformative self-discovery.” -The International Review of Books

Belonging is not something Emily Brown inherited. It is something she had to fight to understand.

In Momentum, Emily traces her life through her parents’ divorce, long-buried family secrets, and the emotional wounds that quietly followed her into adulthood. Beginning in Beverly Hills and stretching across continents to Canada, where she ultimately builds a life of her own.

What unfolds is not a linear autobiography. It is a reckoning. An eight-year immersion in a San Francisco feminist activist organization. A formative year in Hungary on the brink of the Soviet collapse. Motherhood. Migration. Reinvention.

Perfect for readers who loved Wild by Cheryl Strayed, Educated by Tara Westover, and Untamed by Glennon Doyle.

Ideal for book clubs, Momentum explores the universal questions of identity, belonging, and what it truly means to build a life that is entirely your own.
Binding Type: Paperback
Author: Emily Brown
Published: 10/09/2025
Publisher: FriesenPress
ISBN: 9781038342713
Pages: 234
Weight: 0.61lbs
Size: 0.53″ H x 8.50″ L x 5.50″ W

About the Author
Brown, Emily: – Emily Brown has lived a life that spans continents, cultures, and decades of reinvention. She studied economics at the University of California, Berkeley, and went on to earn a master’s degree in international political economy at the Norman Paterson School of International Affairs, at Carleton University in Ottawa, Canada. An academic foundation that gave her a rare lens for understanding the forces that shape families, societies, and individual lives.

That intellectual curiosity carried her into eight years of immersion in a San Francisco feminist activist organization, and later into a formative year in Hungary just as the Soviet Union began its collapse. A firsthand experience of history turning that few memoirists can claim. She eventually settled in Hamilton, Canada, where she raised her son with her Canadian husband, Tony. She built a career in nearby Toronto at the Canadian headquarters of banking and insurance, focused on the human side of institutional systems.

Momentum: A Memoir is Emily’s debut book. She spent a lifetime earning the right to write this story about belonging, family fracture, identity, and building the quiet courage required to create a life entirely on her own terms.

Outside of writing, Emily is an award-winning gardener, having received several Trillium awards for her front yard perennial display, and has participated in Hamilton’s annual city-wide Open Garden event.