Bloodlines: A Memoir

In this gripping memoir, actor Joe Manganiello, star of True Blood and Magic Mike, reveals the previously undisclosed health ordeal--marked by multiple near-death experiences and medical crises--that led him beyond medicine and into a remarkable, globe-spanning quest that revealed answers about his ancestry, inherited trauma, and the deeper histories we carry.

Joe Manganiello seemed to have it all: a soaring career, a new marriage, and what many considered, the best physique in Hollywood. Then, without warning, his body began to fail him. A cascade of autoimmune-related illnesses attacked his skin, thyroid, eyes, lungs, and digestive system, plunging him into a seven-year battle, plagued by chronic pain, a life-saving organ amputation, existential crisis, and a prolonged fight for survival that left doctors with few answers and no clear explanation.

As Manganiello struggled to stay alive amidst medicine's inability to fully explain what ailed him, an unorthodox path emerged--shamans, pagan rituals, ancient myths, long lost family records, and the rebirth of his own spirituality. A search that led him deep into his own bloodline: to a survivor of the Armenian genocide, to ancestors shaped by violence and displacement, and the hidden patterns shared by others living with chronic illness.

In Bloodlines, Manganiello writes with candor and hard-won clarity about illness, masculinity, faith, ambition, and the identities we build to endure. More than a memoir of medical crisis, it is a searching account of what happens when the life you have constructed can no longer contain the truth of what you carry.

Deeply personal and emotionally expansive, Bloodlines considers how the past lives on in the body and in the stories we tell about strength, survival, and selfhood. The result is both a page-turning, heart-pounding book for the ages and an essential meditation on inheritance, loss, and the work of living with what remains.

Author: Joe Manganiello
Publisher: Avid Reader Press / Simon & Schuster
Published: 10/13/2026
Pages: 320
Binding Type: Hardcover
Weight: 1.07lbs
Size: 9.22h x 6.37w x 1.21d
ISBN: 9781668207109


Review Citation(s):
Kirkus Reviews 10/15/2026

About the Author
Joe Manganiello is an actor, author, producer, director, screenwriter, Emmy Award-winning voice actor, and reality competition host. He holds a BFA in acting from The Carnegie Mellon University School of Drama. Best known for his work as an actor of stage, screen, and film, in projects such as: True Blood, the Magic Mike films, One Piece, Justice League, Spider-Man, Nonnas, Pee Wee's Big Holiday, How I Met Your Mother, Rampage, Sabotage, What to Expect When You're Expecting, and The Kill Room, and as the host and executive producer of Deal or No Deal Island. He previously financed, produced, and directed the award-winning documentary La Bare, and produced and starred in the films Bottom of the 9th, Shoplifters of the World, and Archenemy. Manganiello also works as a chief creative officer for Dungeons & Dragons and along with being tasked to write and develop the world of Dragonlance for the screen, he was also recruited to direct and produce D&D's upcoming, official history documentary series. He is the author of the books Bloodlines and Evolution, and he serves on the board of directors at both UPMC Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh and The Children of Armenia Fund and is an advisory board member for both Liquid Death and Colossal Biosciences. After a quarter century living in Los Angeles, he moved back home to Mt. Lebanon, Pennsylvania.