Lisa Brennan-Jobs Discusses 'Coldness' and 'Moments of Joy' She Had With Steve Jobs in Upcoming Memoir 'Small Fry'

In just a few weeks, Lisa Brennan-Jobs will launch "Small Fry," a memoir about her life that includes a focus on the tumultuous relationship she held with her father, Apple co-founder Steve Jobs. As the book launch grows closer, Brennan-Jobs is in the midst of a publicity tour and today her latest interview has been shared by The New York Times, which also provides a few snippets from the book.

Naturally, much of Brennan-Jobs' overview of her childhood includes numerous passages regarding her father's "coldness." Still, the author doesn't want "Small Fry" to be regarded as a tell-all about Steve Jobs, but as more of a "nuanced portrait of a family," as well a book about her own story and not her father's.

small fry lisa brennan jobs NYT

Images of Lisa Brennan-Jobs and Small Fry via NYT

Brennan-Jobs says she began work on what would eventually become "Small Fry" in 2011, not long after Jobs passed in October of that year. She returned to Silicon Valley over the years, interviewing her family, her mother's ex-boyfriends, and Jobs' own ex-girlfriend. In an effort to ensure she'd finish the book on her own terms, she took a 90 percent cut in her book advance and switched from Penguin Press to a smaller publisher named Grove.

Brennan-Jobs focuses much of the memoir on her parents, and her mother Chrisann Brennan has already read the book:

Her mother, Ms. Brennan, is portrayed as a free spirit who nurtured her daughter’s creativity — but could be mercurial, hot-tempered and sometimes neglectful. “It was horrendous for me to read,” Ms. Brennan said in an interview. “It was very, very hard. But she got it right.”

Ms. Brennan said that her daughter has, if anything, underplayed the chaos of her childhood. “She didn’t go into how bad it really was, if you can believe that,” she said.

She also recounts numerous instances when her father would "frequently" use money to "confuse or frighten her," during the years when he claimed paternity:

Ms. Brennan-Jobs describes her father’s frequent use of money to confuse or frighten her. “Sometimes he decided not to pay for things at the very last minute,” she writes, “walking out of restaurants without paying the bill.” When her mother found a beautiful house and asked Mr. Jobs to buy it for her and Lisa, he agreed it was nice — but bought it for himself and moved in with his wife, Laurene Powell Jobs.

Brennan-Jobs also recounts "moments of joy" that she had with Jobs, stating that ultimately she has forgiven her father, and her goal is that she wants the reader to forgive him too:

But “Small Fry” also contains moments of joy that capture Mr. Jobs’s spontaneity and unparalleled mind. When Ms. Brennan-Jobs goes on a school trip to Japan, he arrives unannounced and pulls her out of the program for a day. Father and daughter sit, talking about God and how he sees consciousness. “I was afraid of him and, at the same time, I felt a quaking, electric love,” she writes.

Triumphantly, she loves him, and she wants the book’s scenes of their roller skating and laughing together to be as viral as the scenes of him telling her she will inherit nothing.

“Have I failed?” she asked, in one of our conversations. “Have I failed in fully representing the dearness and the pleasure? The dearness of my father, and the outrageous pleasure of being with him when he was in good form?”

According to Brennan-Jobs, her father did grant her a "movie ending" by apologizing to her toward the end of his life for not spending more time with her, disappearing during her adulthood, forgetting birthdays, and not returning phone calls. She recalls the moment, stating that Jobs claims he acted the way he did in her adulthood because he was offended that she "didn't invite" him to a matriculation event at Harvard during her first year. He ultimately stated "I owe you one."

"Small Fry" will be available to buy on September 4, and you can read more from The New York Times' interview with Lisa Brennan-Jobs right here.

Top Rated Comments

appleguy123 Avatar
69 months ago
When her mother found a beautiful house and asked Mr. Jobs to buy it for her and Lisa, he agreed it was nice -- but bought it for himself and moved in with his wife, Laurene Powell Jobs.
Was this already known? That's probably the most horrible Jobs' anecdote I've heard yet.
Score: 53 Votes (Like | Disagree)
_Refurbished_ Avatar
69 months ago
Jobs was an ass. He’s one of those troubled people that probably figured it out all too late.

He could change the world, but his most important relationship was a failure. Reminds me of Citizen Kane.
Score: 29 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Bollockser Avatar
69 months ago
Was this already known? That's probably the most horrible Jobs' anecdote I've heard yet.
Agreed. Any idolization I had for this man just completely evaporated.
Score: 18 Votes (Like | Disagree)
jonnyb098 Avatar
69 months ago
That surprised me, too. Steve Jobs was a tortured soul. I'm happy for his daughter able to make peace with what must've been a traumatic childhood.
Very True. Reading many books on Steve including the official bio, it was clear he was always bitter towards being adopted especially early on. Maybe it was his way of sadly "paying someone back" for he himself not being wanted by his biological parents. Amazing yet no surprise how things that happen so early in life have a lasting impact.

Makes me think when I hear and see the things parents say and do around their children how negatively it will impact them later. In the big picture there are millions of people (who aren't necessarily bad people) who have no business being parents. For example Steve was a genius with products but clearly had a lot to be desired in the parenting department.
Score: 17 Votes (Like | Disagree)
velocityg4 Avatar
69 months ago
Lisa's Mom was still gold-digging Steve. (asking to buy them a house)
Not really unreasonable. Asking a man to provide the same standard of living to his daughter that his other children enjoy.
Score: 15 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Porco Avatar
69 months ago
I wouldn't even begin to pretend to know Steve Jobs like she did, of course, but it does strike me that the contrasts of love and devotion with a feeling of cold detachment and bewilderment perfectly encapsulates the feelings I (and maybe many of us?) have with Steve Jobs' work in a weirdly parallel (if more minor) way to Lisa's relationship with her father.

I'm sat here typing this post on a computer keyboard I love, attached to a computer I love, with an iPhone I love, all basically (largely) designed under Steve Jobs' leadership. And yet so many decisions he made about Apple's products infuriated me then, and still do to this day.

But I still feel a kind of bond to these rapidly-ageing products... no, not the closer bond of an actual familial relationship of course, but still a human-to-technological relationship that Steve Jobs had so much to do with. One that makes it worth persevering with, because the alternatives (whether from rivals or indeed post-Jobs Apple to some extent) just seem less rewarding.

Maybe in some ways, Woz was the mother of Apple and Steve Jobs was the Father of Apple. And so I guess this all a long-winded way of saying I feel a strange kind of empathy with Lisa Brennan-Jobs, (beyond basic decent humanity) albeit from a much less important perspective.

Anyway, it sounds like an interesting book, I may well read it at some point.
Score: 14 Votes (Like | Disagree)

Popular Stories

iOS 17

iOS 17.2 Will Add These 12 New Features to Your iPhone

Friday December 1, 2023 12:19 pm PST by
iOS 17.2 has been in beta testing for over a month, and it should be released to all users in a few more weeks. The software update includes many new features and changes for iPhones, including the dozen that we have highlighted below. iOS 17.2 is expected to be released to the public in mid-December. To learn about even more features coming in the update, check out our full list. Journal ...
iOS 16 4 Web Push

Apple Confirms Governments Using Push Notifications to Surveil Users

Wednesday December 6, 2023 5:06 am PST by
Unidentified governments are surveilling smartphone users by tracking push notifications that move through Google's and Apple's servers, a US senator warned on Wednesday (via Reuters). In a letter to the Department of Justice, Senator Ron Wyden said foreign officials were demanding the data from the tech giants to track smartphones. The traffic flowing from apps that send push notifications...
airpods pro 2 pink

Apple Releases New AirPods Pro 2 Firmware

Tuesday December 5, 2023 11:28 am PST by
Apple today released new firmware update for both the Lightning and USB-C versions of the AirPods Pro 2. The new firmware is version 6B34, up from the 6B32 firmware introduced in November. Apple does not provide details on what features might be included in the refreshed firmware beyond "bug fixes and other improvements," so it is unclear what's new in the update, but prior software releases ...
magsafe blue 2

iOS 17.2 Brings Qi2 Support to iPhone 13 and iPhone 14 Models

Tuesday December 5, 2023 11:04 am PST by
The iOS 17.2 update that Apple is set to release to the public in the near future will bring support for the next-generation Qi2 wireless charging standard to the iPhone 13 and iPhone 14 models. Qi2 was mentioned in the release notes for the RC version of the update that came out today. With the addition of support for the new standard, iPhone 13 and iPhone 14 models will work with Qi2...
Beyond iPhone 13 Better Blue

'All-Screen' iPhone Under-Display Camera Enters Development

Wednesday December 6, 2023 2:03 am PST by
Apple's Korean suppliers have begun developing smartphone under-display cameras (UDC), paving the way for the first iPhone with a true "all-screen" appearance. According to The Elec, LG Innotek has entered the preliminary development of the UDC, which sits under the display and does not result in a visible hole in the panel when the camera is not in use. A UPC differs from a typical front ...
instagram messenger

Instagram and Facebook Messenger Chats to Disconnect This Month

Tuesday December 5, 2023 1:57 am PST by
Meta has revealed plans to end Instagram users' ability to chat with Facebook accounts later this month, rolling back a feature that it introduced over three years ago. In September 2020, Meta (then Facebook) announced it was merging its Facebook Messenger service with Instagram direct messaging, allowing Instagram users to chat with Facebook users and vice versa using the same platform....
airpods pro bulbs

Black Friday Prices Return for AirPods Pro 2 With USB-C, iPad, and More

Tuesday December 5, 2023 7:30 am PST by
Today we're tracking a collection of deals that are matching - or nearly matching - the same all-time low discounts we saw during Black Friday. This includes the AirPods Pro 2 with USB-C, 9th generation iPad, and M1 MacBook Air. Note: MacRumors is an affiliate partner with some of these vendors. When you click a link and make a purchase, we may receive a small payment, which helps us keep the ...
iPhone 15 USB C Port Event Still

Apple Pushes Back Against iPhone USB-C Regulations in India

Tuesday December 5, 2023 4:18 am PST by
Apple has asked the Indian government to exempt existing iPhones from new rules that require smartphones sold in the country to have a USB-C charging port, reports Reuters. India wants to replicate an upcoming European Union rule that requires all smartphones to implement the USB-C charging standard. However, according to a new report, Apple has told India its local production targets will...