Author Guide · Memoir & Fiction
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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 · Humor · Fiction · 2006–2023 · Updated September 2026
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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 that went to number one on the New York Times bestseller list and won the 2006 Quill Award for Book of the Year; Higher Is Waiting (2017), a spiritual memoir about his childhood and his faith; and A Jazzman’s Blues: A Novel (2023), written with Echo Brown and based on his own Netflix film. Start with Higher Is Waiting if you want to understand Perry beyond the Madea persona. The books sit alongside a much larger body of work as a playwright, screenwriter, director and studio owner.
Watch: Oprah and Tyler Perry on the power of letting go
Quick facts about Tyler Perry
- Books
- 3, published 2006, 2017 and 2023
- First book
- Don’t Make a Black Woman Take Off Her Earrings, Riverhead, April 2006 — the 2007 date that circulates online is the paperback
- How it did
- a number one New York Times bestseller, and winner of the 2006 Quill Award for Book of the Year
- Narrated by
- Madea, in the first book — the character he had been playing on stage since the 1990s, years before the films
- The memoir
- Higher Is Waiting (2017), built from his childhood in New Orleans and organised around lessons rather than as a chronological life story
- The novel
- A Jazzman’s Blues (2023), Atria Books, 288 pages, written with Echo Brown
- Where it came from
- a screenplay Perry wrote in 1995 and finally filmed for Netflix in 2022 — twenty-seven years later
- Also
- a playwright, screenwriter, director and producer; the books are a small part of the work
All 3 books by Tyler Perry, in order
Don’t Make a Black Woman Take Off Her Earrings: Madea’s Uninhibited Commentaries on Love and Life
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 went to number one on the New York Times bestseller list and won the 2006 Quill Award for Book of the Year, beating the category winners in every other genre that 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.
— LisanneHigher Is Waiting
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.
— LisanneA Jazzman’s Blues: A Novel
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.
— LisanneThe Other Work: Why the Book Count Is So Small
Three books is a short shelf for someone this prolific, and that is the point — almost everything Perry has made is for the stage or the screen rather than the page. Here is what sits around the three.
- The stage plays came first — Madea was a stage character for years before the films, and long before the 2006 book. The plays are where the voice in Don’t Make a Black Woman Take Off Her Earrings was worked out, in front of an audience, which is why the book reads as performance rather than prose.
- A Jazzman’s Blues exists twice — The Netflix film came out in September 2022 and the novel in 2023. The screenplay dates from 1995. If you are searching for the book and finding only the film, that is why — and the novel is credited to two people, Perry and Echo Brown, which is why it sometimes disappears from lists of books Perry wrote.
- And the things that are not books — Films, television series, and a studio in Atlanta. None of it counts towards the bibliography above, but it is the reason most people arrive at this page expecting a longer list.
What the Three Books Have in Common
Each one is written in a borrowed voice. The first is Madea’s, the second is the voice of a devotional, and the third is shared with a co-author. Perry rarely writes as plainly himself on the page as he does when he is being interviewed, which is worth knowing before you open any of them.
The same childhood is underneath all three. The poverty and the violence in New Orleans surface as jokes in the first book, as testimony in the second, and as 1940s Georgia in the third. The register changes; the material does not.
And all three come out of performance rather than the desk. A stage character, a set of talks, and a screenplay. That is why they read faster than most books of their length and why none of them is structured as an argument.
Tyler Perry Books in Order
Three books, eleven years apart at the widest: Don’t Make a Black Woman Take Off Her Earrings (2006), Higher Is Waiting (2017) and A Jazzman’s Blues: A Novel (2023).
There is no reading order, because no two of them are the same kind of book. The first is Madea holding court, the second is Perry with the character taken off, and the third is fiction written with a collaborator. Read whichever register you actually want.
The dates are misleading about the work behind them. The 2023 novel comes from a screenplay he wrote in 1995 and could not get made for twenty-seven years, and the 2006 book is drawn from a stage character he had been performing since the previous decade. Neither started where its publication date suggests.
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.
If you would rather watch than read
→ The conversation with Oprah below covers the same ground as Higher Is Waiting, discussed directly rather than through a character.
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 and published by Atria Books. 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.
Did Tyler Perry’s book win any awards?
Yes. Don’t Make a Black Woman Take Off Her Earrings won the Quill Award for Book of the Year in 2006, the top prize of that year’s Quill Book Awards, and reached number one on the New York Times bestseller list.
When was Don’t Make a Black Woman Take Off Her Earrings published?
Riverhead Books published it in April 2006. The date February 2007, which appears on a good many retailer pages, is the paperback edition rather than the first publication.
Who is Echo Brown?
Echo Brown was an American author, best known for the young-adult novel Black Girl Unlimited. She co-wrote A Jazzman’s Blues: A Novel with Tyler Perry, adapting his screenplay into prose. The novel is credited to both of them, which is why it is sometimes left off lists of Perry’s books.
Sources
- Tyler Perry — Wikipedia
- Don’t Make a Black Woman Take Off Her Earrings — Penguin Random House
- 2006 Quill Awards winners — Ann Arbor District Library
- A Jazzman’s Blues: A Novel — Harvard Book Store (Atria, 288pp)
- A Jazzman’s Blues — Google Books
Bibliography last verified 7 September 2026.
“If Madea is the mask, this is closer to the face underneath.”
— Lisanne Swart, on Higher Is Waiting.
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