Entertainment Music Jason Gould Reveals Surprising Thing He Learned About Mom Barbra Streisand in Her Memoir: 'It Was Very Honest' (Exclusive) "It had been painful [and] a little hard to read, but it didn't bother me. It didn't trigger me, really. You know? We all have trauma," Gould tells PEOPLE By Ingrid Vasquez Ingrid Vasquez Ingrid Vasquez is a Digital News Writer at PEOPLE. She graduated from The University of Texas at Austin with a Bachelor in Journalism. Before joining the team, she worked as an Editor at FanSided and provided work in the celebrity and lifestyle space for brands that include Teen Vogue, Cosmopolitan, EW, and more. People Editorial Guidelines and Liz McNeil Liz McNeil Liz McNeil is an Editor at Large at PEOPLE, where she's worked for over 30 years. People Editorial Guidelines Published on March 30, 2024 06:00PM EDT Close (L-R) Jason Gould and Barbara Streisand in Paris in June 2007. Photo: Michel Dufour/WireImage Jason Gould is still learning new things about his mom, Barbra Streisand. The singer-songwriter, 57, tells PEOPLE he read his mom's November 2023 memoir, My Name Is Barbra, and said it taught him at least one unknown fact about her childhood. "It was interesting because I didn't know that she was a little shoplifter as a kid," he says. "I can't remember what she said [in detail] but I didn't know that about her." Streisand's memoir touches on all the highs and lows of her life, including her divorce from Gould's father, Elliott. Jason Gould as a child with mom Barbra Streisand in 1969. Stanley Bielecki Movie Collection/Getty Jason Gould Weighs in on 'Dismissive, Mean-Spirited' Nepo Baby Conversation: 'I've Had My Challenges' (Exclusive) Most of the book, however, wasn't a surprise, he says, noting that he read "every darn page of it." "I thought it was very honest, and I thought it was well-written. It had painful [parts] that were a little hard to read. We all have trauma. That's the thing. Including me," he says. "And the question is, 'How do we heal it?' So, I'm definitely on that path." Jason Gould in Beverly Hills in November 2014. Michael Tullberg/Getty How Jason Gould 'Reclaimed' His Voice Through Writing Music and Why He Won't Go on Tour (Exclusive) "My mother lost her father, when she was an infant, so that's a huge trauma," he explains. "She had a stepfather, who was abusive. That's a huge trauma. My father's mother had tremendous trauma. How could that not affect him and, therefore, affect me? How could my mother's trauma not, therefore, affect me? It has, even in ways that I'm sure they're not even conscious of." Gould, who recently released his Sacred Days EP, also recalls how his mom, 81, shared her love of music from early on. Barbra Streisand in Malibu in July 2023. Kevin Mazur/Getty "As a child, I was always a kid who would sit at the keyboard and come up with little melodies, but I never knew how to develop them into a full-fledged song," he says. "And I never even attempted to write lyrics until maybe a little over 10 years ago, but it's always been a part of me." Never miss a story — sign up for PEOPLE's free daily newsletter to stay up-to-date on the best of what PEOPLE has to offer, from juicy celebrity news to compelling human interest stories. Still, he notes, music was a "part of me that I was afraid to explore because my mother was an icon in that world." "It was like, I don't want to be judged and compared to her, so I kind of dampened down that part of myself, for a long time, until I couldn't anymore," says Gould. "I had to work through some fear to be able to do it," he says. "I sort of reclaimed my voice." For more from Jason Gould, pick up the latest issue of PEOPLE, on newsstands everywhere now.