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Tyler Perry

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Books Written by Tyler Perry

Tyler Perry is best known as a filmmaker, playwright, and the creator of Madea — but his writing life started on stage and has produced three books across three completely different registers: sharp comic commentary, raw spiritual memoir, and, most recently, a novel. Perry grew up in New Orleans in poverty and violence he has spoken about candidly for decades, and that history runs underneath everything he’s written, even the jokes.

If you only know Perry from Madea movies, his books are a useful corrective — especially Higher Is Waiting, which drops the comedy almost entirely and gets at the material his films only gesture toward.

By Lisanne Swart · 3 books · Memoir & Fiction · Updated August 2026

Quick answer

Tyler Perry has written three books: Don’t Make a Black Woman Take Off Her Earrings (2006), a comic advice book narrated by Madea; Higher Is Waiting (2017), a spiritual memoir about his childhood and faith; and A Jazzman’s Blues: A Novel (2023), co-written with Echo Brown and based on his own Netflix film of the same name. Higher Is Waiting is the one to start with if you want to understand Perry beyond the Madea persona.

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01
Humor · Commentary

Don’t Make a Black Woman Take Off Her Earrings: Madea’s Uninhibited Commentaries on Love and Life

Tyler Perry · 2006

Perry’s first book, narrated entirely in the voice of Madea, his gun-toting, blunt-spoken alter ego. It’s structured as a series of advice-column-style riffs on love, family, aging, and respect — less a coherent narrative than a collection of Madea holding court, which is exactly the appeal for readers who came to know the character through his stage plays before the films existed. It became a national bestseller and won the 2006 Quill Award for Book of the Year.

This is Perry at his most purely entertaining, written for the audience that had already spent a decade in theaters watching his plays. If you want to understand why Madea became a franchise worth over a billion dollars at the box office, this book is where the voice is most concentrated and unfiltered.

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02
Memoir · SpiritualStart here

Higher Is Waiting

Tyler Perry · 2017

Perry drops the Madea voice completely for this one. Higher Is Waiting is a collection of reflections drawn from his own life — a childhood marked by poverty and his father’s violence in New Orleans, the relatives who protected him, and the faith that got him through it — organized as a kind of spiritual guidebook rather than a straight chronological memoir. It’s the book that makes clear how much of his film and TV work, for all its comedy, is drawn directly from lived material.

If Madea is the mask, this is closer to the face underneath. Perry writes about his father’s abuse and his own path to forgiveness with a directness that his films, even the serious ones, tend to soften. Essential if you want to understand the man behind the studio empire rather than just the brand.

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03
Fiction · Novel

A Jazzman’s Blues: A Novel

Tyler Perry & Echo Brown · 2023

A novelization of Perry’s 2022 Netflix film of the same name — itself a screenplay he wrote in 1995, nearly three decades before it was produced. Set in rural Georgia in the 1940s, it follows Bayou, a young Black singer with a gift he can’t yet use, and Leanne, the woman he loves across a dangerous divide of family, race, and colorism. Perry co-wrote the novel with author Echo Brown, expanding the film’s story with the kind of interiority a screenplay can’t carry.

His only work of fiction, and it shows a different muscle than the comedy or the memoir — a slower, more atmospheric register, closer to Southern gothic than to anything else in his catalogue. Worth reading alongside or instead of the film if you want the fuller version of the story he’d been carrying for 27 years before he finally made it.

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Watch: Oprah and Tyler Perry on the power of letting go

An in-depth conversation about forgiveness and his relationship with his father — the same material Higher Is Waiting is built on, discussed directly rather than through Madea or any other character.

Where to start with Tyler Perry

If you want to understand the man, not the brand

Start with Higher Is Waiting. No Madea, no comedy filter — just the childhood and the faith that built everything else.

If you’re already a Madea fan

Don’t Make a Black Woman Take Off Her Earrings is the character at full, unfiltered volume — closer to his stage plays than any of the films.

If you want his fiction

A Jazzman’s Blues is his only novel, and the only place to see him working in a register other than comedy or memoir.

Frequently asked questions about Tyler Perry’s books

How many books has Tyler Perry written?

Tyler Perry has written three books: Don’t Make a Black Woman Take Off Her Earrings (2006), Higher Is Waiting (2017), and A Jazzman’s Blues: A Novel (2023, co-written with Echo Brown). This is separate from his much larger body of work as a playwright, screenwriter, director, and producer.

What is the best Tyler Perry book to start with?

Higher Is Waiting is the best starting point if you want to understand Perry beyond the Madea character — it’s a spiritual memoir about his childhood in New Orleans, his father’s abuse, and his path to forgiveness, written without any comedic filter. If you’re already a fan of the Madea character, Don’t Make a Black Woman Take Off Her Earrings is closer to his stage-play material.

Did Tyler Perry write a novel?

Yes — A Jazzman’s Blues: A Novel (2023), co-written with author Echo Brown. It’s a novelization of Perry’s own 2022 Netflix film of the same name, which was based on a screenplay he originally wrote in 1995, decades before it was produced.

Is Higher Is Waiting a memoir?

Higher Is Waiting is best described as a spiritual guidebook built from memoir material rather than a strict chronological autobiography. It draws on Perry’s childhood in New Orleans, including the poverty and abuse he experienced, and the people and faith that helped him survive it, organized around lessons rather than a linear life story.

Written by Lisanne Swart

Lisanne curates books for curious readers at lisanneswart.com, publishing original reading lists, author deep-dives, and honest recommendations since 2021. Read more about Lisanne.

More from the shelf

Reading listBest Memoirs and BiographiesLives told with the same directness as Higher Is Waiting.
Reading listBooks About ForgivenessThe theme at the center of Perry’s own story.
Reading listBest Books by American AuthorsWhere Perry’s work sits alongside the rest of the shelf.
Author guideBooks Written by John CarreyrouA completely different world, same interest in what’s underneath the public story.

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