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Never Say You've Had a Lucky Life: Especially If You've Had a Lucky Life
by Joseph EpsteinA rich and comic portrait of the radical changes in American life and the literary world over the last eighty years. An autobiography usually requires a justification. The great autobiographies—those by Benvenuto Cellini, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Benjamin Franklin, and Henry Brooks Adams—were justified by their authors living in interesting times, harboring radically new ideas, or participating in great events. Joseph Epstein qualifies on none of these counts. His life has been quiet, lucky in numerous ways, and far from dramatic. But it has also been emblematic of the great changes in our country since World War II. He grew up in a petit-bourgeois, Midwestern milieu, and the city of Chicago looms large in his life. He drew a lucky ticket in the parent lottery and his was a happy boyhood spent on playgrounds and hanging around drug stores. At high school dances, he was the rhumba king and at drive-in movies he was never allowed to go as far with girls as he so ardently desired. At twenty-six, after two years in the army, he found himself married, the father or stepfather of four children, and living in New York on the meager salary of a magazine subeditor. He was ablaze with ambition and fettered by frustration. He broke out by moving to Little Rock, Arkansas, to direct the city&’s anti-poverty program at the height of the Civil Rights movement. His writing career blossomed, he began teaching at Northwestern University, and, for twenty-five years, edited one of great intellectual magazines. Never Say You&’ve Had a Lucky Life is an intimate look at one life steeped in radical change: from a traditionally moral culture to a therapeutic one, from an era when the extended family was strong to its current diminished status, from print to digital life featuring the war of pixel on print, and on. But for all the seriousness of Epstein&’s themes, this book is memorable for its comic point of view and the constant reminder of how unpredictable, various, and wondrously rich life can be.
Never Seen the Moon: The Trials of Edith Maxwell
by Sharon HatfieldNever Seen the Moon carefully yet lucidly recreates a young woman's wild ride through the American legal system. In 1935, free-spirited young teacher Edith Maxwell and her mother were indicted for murdering Edith's conservative and domineering father, Trigg, late one July night in their Wise County, Virginia, home. Edith claimed her father had tried to whip her for staying out late. She said that she had defended herself by striking back with a high-heeled shoe, thus earning herself the sobriquet "slipper slayer." Immediately granted celebrity status by the powerful Hearst press, Maxwell was also championed as a martyr by advocates of women's causes. National news magazines and even detective magazines picked up her story, Warner Brothers created a screen version, and Eleanor Roosevelt helped secure her early release from prison. Sharon Hatfield's brilliant telling of this true-crime story transforms a dusty piece of history into a vibrant thriller. Throughout the narrative, she discusses yellow journalism, the inequities of the jury system, class and gender tensions in a developing region, and a woman's right to defend herself from family violence.
Never Settle: Sports, Family, and the American Soul
by Marty SmithThe amazing and blessed life of popular ESPN reporter and correspondent for College GameDay, Marty Smith, whose mission in this thoughtful and funny memoir is to return fans to the true soul of sports in this country. You know Marty right? The guy during College GameDay hanging off the back of a pickup truck while zooming around the Clemson athletic facilities. The guy who visits Nick Saban's lake house and somehow gets Coach to jump in the lake. The guy who sits down with Dale Jr. at Daytona to talk through tears about his miraculous return to racing. The guy who interviews Tiger Woods, Tim Tebow, Peyton Manning and Jimmie Johnson -- the guy who gets paid to live the fantasy of every sports fan in America.Never Settle is the funny but oh, it's true story of how Marty got here, and a revealing look at his journey. Never Settle includes all the best stories and behind-the-scenes moments from Marty's wild life, covering topics including: college football, racing, fathers and sons, how sports can bring us together, and how it all goes back to growing up on a farm and playing high school ball in Pearisburg, Virginia.
Never Shut Up: The Life, Opinions, and Unexpected Adventures of an NFL Outlier
by Marcellus WileyEx-NFL player, gentleman scholar, and Fox Sports personality Marcellus Wiley sucks you into a world of inner-city violence, Ivy League intrigue, and pro-football escapades that's one part touching, one part hilarious, and all parts impossible to put down. <P><P>Marcellus Wiley has never had a problem expressing his opinion, whether it was growing up in Compton with a football tucked under his arm, or going to college at Columbia University, where he learned to survive Advanced Calculus and self-important pseudo-intellectuals. Or making it to the NFL against all odds, where he put together a ten-year career of massive paydays, massive painkillers, and massive sacks of everyone from Steve Young to Peyton Manning. <P><P>Now, in Never Shut Up, Fox Sports' hottest rising persona doesn't hold back as he goes off on everything that's controversial with the game today, from concussions to political protests to inherent violence that's worse than the hood he grew up in. Not because he hates football, but because he wants to save it. <P><P>Marcellus has never held back, even when a lot of people wanted him to. Now, he's letting it all hang out--right there on each page. Way more than just another book about the latest NFL scandals, this warm, moving, and genuinely funny story of awkward transitions, family loyalty, fame, fortune, and failure will make you fall in love with Marcellus--and football--all over again. <P><P>In Never Shut Up, Marcellus will take you on a truly unique journey from Crenshaw to Broadway to the Buffalo Bills and back again, sometimes making you laugh, sometimes making you cry, but always leaving you entertained.
Never Silent: ACT UP and My Life in Activism
by Anderson Cooper Peter StaleyThe previously untold stories of the life of the leading subject in David France's How To Survive A Plague, Peter Staley, including his continuing activism In 1987, somebody shoved a flyer into the hand of Peter Staley: massive AIDS demonstration, it announced. After four years on Wall Street as a closeted gay man, Staley was familiar with the homophobia common on trading floors. He also knew that he was not beyond the reach of HIV, having recently been diagnosed with AIDS-Related Complex. A week after the protest, Staley found his way to a packed meeting of the AIDS Coalition To Unleash Power—ACT UP—in the West Village. It would prove to be the best decision he ever made. ACT UP would change the course of AIDS, pressuring the National Institutes of Health, the FDA, and three administrations to finally respond with research that ultimately saved millions of lives. Staley, a shrewd strategist with nerves of steel, organized some of the group's most spectacular actions, from shutting down trading on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange to putting a giant condom over the house of Senator Jesse Helms. Never Silent is the inside story of what brought Staley to ACT UP and the explosive and sometimes painful years to follow—years filled with triumph, humiliation, joy, loss, and persistence.Never Silent is guaranteed to inspire the activist within all of us.
Never Simple: A Memoir
by Liz ScheierLiz Scheier’s darkly funny and touching memoir—with shades of Jeannette Walls’s The Glass Castle and Mira Bartók’s The Memory Palace—of growing up in ’90s Manhattan with a brilliant, mendacious single motherScheier’s mother Judith was a news junkie, a hilarious storyteller, a fast-talking charmer you couldn’t look away from, a single mother whose devotion crossed the line into obsession, and—when in the grips of the mental illness that plagued every day of her life—a violent and abusive liar whose hold on reality was shaky at best. On an uneventful afternoon when Scheier was eighteen, her mother sauntered into the room to tell her two important things: one, she had been married for most of Scheier’s life to a man she’d never heard of, and two, the man she’d told Scheier was her father was entirely fictional. She’d made him up. Those two big lies were the start, but not the end; it took dozens of smaller lies to support them, and by the time she was done she had built a farcical, half-true life for the two of them, from fake social security number to fabricated husband. One hot July day twenty years later, Scheier receives a voicemail from Adult Protective Services, reporting that Judith has stopped paying rent and is refusing all offers of assistance. That call is the start of a shocking journey that takes the Scheiers, mother and daughter, deep into the cascading effects of decades of lies and deception.Never Simple is the story of learning to survive—and, finally, trying to save—a complicated parent, as feared as she is loved, and as self-destructive as she is adoring.
Never Sit If You Can Dance: Lessons from My Mother
by Jo GieseAn Amazon Bestseller Jo&’s mother, Babe, liked to drink, dance, and stay up very late. When the husband she adored went on sales calls, she waited for him in the parking lot, embroidering pillowcases. Jo grew up thinking that the last thing she wanted was to be like her mother. Then it dawned on her that her own happiness was derived in large part from lessons Babe had taught her. Her mother might have had tomato aspic and stewed rhubarb in her fridge, while Jo had organic kale and almond milk in hers, but in more important ways they were much closer in spirit than Jo had once thought. At a turbulent time in America, Never Sit If You Can Dance offers uplifting lessons in old-fashioned civility that will ring true with mothers, daughters, and their families. Told with lighthearted good humor, it&’s a charming tale of the way things used to be—and probably still should be.
Never Stop Dreaming: My Euro 96 Story
by Stuart Pearce Oliver HoltStuart Pearce became the face of England's bid to win the 1996 European Championships when his maniacal explosion of joy and relief at scoring a penalty in the quarter-final shoot-out against Spain captured the mood of a nation.England did not win the tournament, but, against a backdrop of the Three Lions song that played from every pub, every bar, every car radio and every open window in that summer, it cemented the renaissance of the game in this country. Alongside his friendships with Paul Gascoigne and Gareth Southgate - including the time the trio were invited on stage by the Sex Pistols - the book details the semi-final against Germany, more heartbreak in the penalty shootout when Southgate missed England's sixth penalty and what the tournament meant to Pearce and to Southgate and to the rest of the country.It is a first-hand account of the summer when football came home for England fans, and when the country lost itself in the joy of a home tournament. His memoir - heavy with the presence of his friend Southgate - is the perfect bridge to the excitement that will build and build as Euro 2020 descends on us and Southgate's England attempt to win their first major tournament since 1966.
Never Stop Dreaming: My Euro 96 Story - SHORTLISTED FOR SPORTS ENTERTAINMENT BOOK OF THE YEAR 2021
by Stuart Pearce Oliver HoltStuart Pearce became the face of England's bid to win the 1996 European Championships when his maniacal explosion of joy and relief at scoring a penalty in the quarter-final shoot-out against Spain captured the mood of a nation.England did not win the tournament, but, against a backdrop of the Three Lions song that played from every pub, every bar, every car radio and every open window in that summer, it cemented the renaissance of the game in this country. Alongside his friendships with Paul Gascoigne and Gareth Southgate - including the time the trio were invited on stage by the Sex Pistols - the book details the semi-final against Germany, more heartbreak in the penalty shootout when Southgate missed England's sixth penalty and what the tournament meant to Pearce and to Southgate and to the rest of the country.It is a first-hand account of the summer when football came home for England fans, and when the country lost itself in the joy of a home tournament.
Never Stop Dreaming: My Euro 96 Story - SHORTLISTED FOR SPORTS ENTERTAINMENT BOOK OF THE YEAR 2021
by Stuart Pearce Oliver HoltA first-hand account of one of the most memorable summers of the 90s.Stuart Pearce became the face of England's bid to win the 1996 European Championships when his maniacal explosion of joy and relief at scoring a penalty in the quarter-final shoot-out against Spain captured the mood of a nation.England did not win the tournament, but, against a backdrop of the Three Lions song that played from every pub, every bar, every car radio and every open window in that summer, it cemented the renaissance of the game in this country. Alongside his friendships with Paul Gascoigne and Gareth Southgate - including the time the trio were invited on stage by the Sex Pistols - the book details the semi-final against Germany, more heartbreak in the penalty shootout when Southgate missed England's sixth penalty and what the tournament meant to Pearce and to Southgate and to the rest of the country.It is a first-hand account of the summer when football came home for England fans, and when the country lost itself in the joy of a home tournament. His memoir - heavy with the presence of his friend Southgate - is the perfect bridge to the excitement that will build and build as Euro 2020 descends on us and Southgate's England attempt to win their first major tournament since 1966.(P) 2020 Hodder & Stoughton Ltd
Never Stop Pushing: My Life from a Wyoming Farm to the Olympic Medals Stand
by Bob Schaller Rulon GardnerNever Stop Pushing is a motivational autobiography by Olympic Greco-Roman champion wrestler Rulon Gardner (Gold Medal, 2000; Bronze Medal, 2004). This inspiring memoir comes from one of the world's most remarkable athletes who achieved arguably the greatest upset in individual sports history when he defeated the Russian Alexander Karelin - three-time Olympic champ, undefeated and unscored upon for a decade before his match with Gardner - in the 2000 Gold Medal match. Rulon Gardner tells the story of his impoverished upbringing as one of nine children in a close-knit Mormon family on a farm in Wyoming, where in performing unceasing chores he developed tremendous strength at an early age. Gardner writes about his struggles in school made arduous by learning disabilities that have challenged him his whole life. Also, after winning his Gold Medal, we read how this champion survived a snowmobile accident that marooned him outdoors for eighteen hours in high country. Rulon Gardner recovered from this and went on to defend his Gold Medal at Athens in 2004-yet another comeback from this athlete who was supposed to simply fade away.
Never Stop: A Memoir
by Simba SanaA memoir from the cofounder of the nation&’s largest black-owned chain of bookstores. &“A candid testimony of struggle and achievement.&” —Kirkus Reviews Never Stop is the wrenching memoir of Simba Sana, the cofounder and former leader of Karibu Books, a major indie-bookselling phenomenon and perhaps the most successful black-owned company in the history of the book industry. In this memoir, Sana reveals how his experience with Karibu jumpstarted his lifelong journey to better understanding himself, human nature, faith, and American culture—which ultimately helped him develop the powerful personal philosophy that drives his life today. Born Bernard Sutton in Washington, DC, Sana grew up in the cycle of poverty and violence that dominated inner-city life in the seventies and eighties. Sana&’s academic success got him into college, where his life increasingly embodied the contradictions that plagued his youth. Committed to self-improvement and self-discipline, he grew into a successful businessman while becoming an impassioned Black Nationalist and Pan-Africanist. He lived the corporate life at Ernst & Young by day while leading radical consciousness-raising groups by night. Building Karibu became Sana&’s opportunity to bind the disparate elements of his life together. Ultimately, though, the paradoxes in his identity and his accumulated emotional wounds confounded his effort to overcome his business reversals, and everything Sana built—his marriage, family, and business—was lost in an incredibly brief period of time. Sana had to rebuild his life—and his identity—and set out to do so in a way that focused principally on the meaning and importance of love. &“Hands down one of the best explorations into the Black male psyche I&’ve ever read.&” —Essence
Never Suck a Dead Man's Hand: Curious Adventures Of A Csi (Crime Scene Ser.)
by Dana Kollmann"Informative, witty. . . Kollmann delivers terse commentary and gory detail while puncturing common misconceptions about forensics. " --Booklist Step past the flashing lights into the true scene of the crime with this frank, unflinching, and unforgettable account of life as a crime scene investigator. Whether explaining rigor mortis or the art of fingerprinting a stiff corpse on the side of the road, Dana Kollmann details her true, unvarnished experiences as a CSI for the Baltimore County Police Department. "Riveting. " --M. William Phelps, author of Murder in the Heartland Unlike the popular crime dramas proliferating on today's television networks, these forensic tales forgo glitz for grit to show what really goes on. Kollmann recounts stories that the cops and the CSI's usually leave in the field, bringing the sights, smells, and sounds of a crime scene alive as never before. "Raw and real. " --Connie Fletcher, author of Every Contact Leaves a Trace Unveiling the process and science of crime scene investigation in all its can't-tear-your-eyes-away fascination, Never Suck a Dead Man's Hand takes you into the strange world behind the yellow tape, offering a truly eye-opening perspective on the day-to-day life of a CSI. "Gritty, witty, and heartfelt . . . a must-read. " --Aphrodite Jones, New York Times bestselling author of A Perfect Husband
Never Surrender: A Soldier's Journey to the Crossroads of Faith and Freedom
by Lynn Vincent Jerry BoykinIn 1978, Jerry Boykin joined what would become the world's premier Special Operations unit, Delta Force. The only promise: "A medal and a body bag." What followed was a .50 caliber round in the chest and a life spent with America's elite forces bringing down warlords and war criminals, despots, and dictators. In Colombia, his task force hunted the notorious drug lord Pablo Escobar. In Panama, he helped capture the brutal dictator Manuel Noriega, liberating a nation. From Vietnam to Iran to Mogadishu, Lt. General Jerry Boykin's life reads like an action-adventure novel. Boykin's powerful story will keep you riveted as he reveals how his military duty worked in tandem with his faith to bring him through the bloody storms of foreign battle-and through the political firestorm that ambushed him in his own country.
Never Tell Our Business to Strangers: A Memoir
by Jennifer MasciaAfter years of crisscrossing the country, Mascia's mother finally revealed that Jennifer's early life had been spent on the lam. What had her parents done? The truth was more surprising than Mascia ever imagined.
Never Trust a Sneaky Pony
by DVM MS Madison SeamansJames Herriot meets Jeff Foxworthy in the real-life adventures of a traveling horse doctor.Climb into the truck alongside large animal vet Dr. Madison Seamans and race to the aid of horses with wounds, stomach aches, allergies, and bizarre behaviors, as well as those in severe physical distress. Quite by accident, you'll find yourself familiar with and understanding common equine medical problems and how they are diagnosed and treated, all while marveling at the remarkable situations a country veterinarian can find himself in. Playful yet serious, honest yet tongue-in-cheek, this wonderfully written book is an up-close look at a well-lived rural life that is about as authentic as America gets. No one who cares a whit for the animal kingdom, and the humans who dare enter it, will be disappointed.
Never Trust a Thin Cook and Other Lessons from Italy’s Culinary Capital
by Eric DregniThe food-obsessed chronicle of an American&’s three years in Italy—now available in paperback I simply want to live in the place with the best food in the world. This dream led Eric Dregni to Italy, first to Milan and eventually to a small, fog-covered town to the north: Modena, the birthplace of balsamic vinegar, Ferrari, and Luciano Pavarotti. Never Trust a Thin Cook is a classic American abroad tale, brimming with adventures both expected and unexpected, awkward social moments, and most important, very good food. Parmesan thieves. Tortellini based on the shape of Venus&’s navel. Infiltrating the secret world of the balsamic vinegar elite. Life in Modena is a long way from the Leaning Tower of Pizza (the south Minneapolis pizzeria where Eric and his girlfriend and fellow traveler Katy first met), and while some Italians are impressed that &“Minnesota&” sounds like &“minestrone,&” they are soon learning what it means to live in a country where the word &“safe&” doesn&’t actually exist—only &“less dangerous.&” Thankfully, another meal is always waiting, and Dregni revels in uncorking the secrets of Italian cuisine, such as how to guzzle espresso &“corrected&” with grappa and learning that mold really does make a good salami great. What begins as a gastronomical quest soon becomes a revealing, authentic portrait of how Italians live and a hilarious demonstration of how American and Italian cultures differ. In Never Trust a Thin Cook, Eric Dregni dishes up the sometimes wild experiences of living abroad alongside the simple pleasures of Italian culture in perfect, complementary portions.
Never Understood: The Jesus and Mary Chain
by William Reid Jim ReidFor 5 years after they'd swapped sought-after apprenticeships for life on the dole, brothers William and Jim Reid sat up till the early hours in the front room of their parents' East Kilbride council house, plotting their path to world domination over endless cups of tea, with the music turned down low so as not to wake their sleeping sister. They knew they couldn't play in the same band because they'd argue too much, so they'd describe their dream ensembles to each other until finally they realised that these two perfect bands were actually the same band, and the name of that band was The Jesus and Mary Chain. The rest was not silence, and picking up those conversations again more than 40 years later, William and Jim tell the full story of one of Britain's greatest guitar bands for the very first time - a wildly funny and improbably moving chronicle of brotherly strife, feedback, riots, drug and alcohol addiction, eternal outsiders and extreme shyness, that also somehow manages to be a love letter to the Scottish working-class family.
Never Understood: The Jesus and Mary Chain
by William Reid Jim ReidFor 5 years after they'd swapped sought-after apprenticeships for life on the dole, brothers William and Jim Reid sat up till the early hours in the front room of their parents' East Kilbride council house, plotting their path to world domination over endless cups of tea, with the music turned down low so as not to wake their sleeping sister. They knew they couldn't play in the same band because they'd argue too much, so they'd describe their dream ensembles to each other until finally they realised that these two perfect bands were actually the same band, and the name of that band was The Jesus and Mary Chain. The rest was not silence, and picking up those conversations again more than 40 years later, William and Jim tell the full story of one of Britain's greatest guitar bands for the very first time - a wildly funny and improbably moving chronicle of brotherly strife, feedback, riots, drug and alcohol addiction, eternal outsiders and extreme shyness, that also somehow manages to be a love letter to the Scottish working-class family.
Never Understood: The Jesus and Mary Chain
by William Reid Jim ReidWilliam and Jim Reid, brothers and founding members of The Jesus and Mary Chain—a band that bridged the gap between the punk explosion and the emergence of grunge and Britpop—chronicle the chaos, confusion, and stories behind their music. For five years after they&’d swapped sought-after apprenticeships for life on the dole, brothers William and Jim Reid sat up till the early hours in the front room of their parents&’ East Kilbride council house, plotting their path to world domination over endless cups of tea, with the music turned down low so as not to wake their sleeping sister. They knew they couldn&’t play in the same band because they&’d argue too much, so they&’d describe their dream ensembles to each other until finally they realized that these two perfect bands were actually the same band. The name of that band was The Jesus and Mary Chain. The rest was not silence, and picking up those conversations again more than forty years later, William and Jim tell the full story of one of Britain&’s greatest guitar bands for the very first time – a wildly funny and improbably moving chronicle of brotherly strife, feedback, riots, drug and alcohol addiction, eternal outsiders and extreme shyness, that also somehow manages to be a love letter to the Scottish working-class family.
Never Will I Die: The inspiring Special Forces soldier who cheated death and learned to live again
by Michael Calvin Toby GutteridgeThere's no pain, no theatrical agony. No screaming, no shouting. The kill shot is catastrophic and conclusive. I slump silently on to my knees and topple forward, head first, into the dirt. The lads have seen enough death to assume mine is instantaneous. The lights are out. That's him gone.Toby Gutteridge was only 24 when he was shot through the neck while operating behind enemy lines in Afghanistan. He survived despite not breathing for at least 20 minutes. Back in the UK, doctors recommended that his life support machine be switched off, but with the defiant spirit that would define his recovery, Toby pulled through.Now quadriplegic, capable of movement only with his head, Toby has rebuilt his life. His is an extraordinary story of survival against overwhelming odds, and of the power of the human spirit to overcome extreme adversity. Brutally honest and authentic, he builds a compelling picture of the type of person produced by the Special Forces system, and tells of how one split second changed the course of his life forever.Powerful and inspiring, Never Will I Die is a universal story about our search for purpose, and explores what extreme experience teaches us about what truly matters.
Never Without Heroes: Marine Third Reconnaissance Battalion in Vietnam, 1965-70
by Lawrence C. Vetter Jr.FOUR CONGRESSIONAL MEDALS OF HONOR,THIRTEEN NAVAL CROSSES,SEVENTY-TWO SILVER STARS . . .In four and a half years in Vietnam, the Marines of the Third Reconnaissance Battalion repeatedly penetrated North Vietnamese and Vietcong sanctuaries by foot and by helicopter to find enemy forces, learn the enemy's intentions, and, when possible, bring deadly fire down on his head. Heavily armed, well-camouflaged teams of six and eight men daily exposed themselves to overwhelming enemy forces so that other Marines would have the information necessary to fight the war.It's all here: grueling, tense, and deadly recon patrols; insertions directly into NVA basecamps; last-stand defenses in the wreckage of downed helicopters; pursuit by superior North Vietnamese forces; agonizing deaths of men who valiantly put their lives on the line.NEVER WITHOUT HEROES is the first book to recount the story of a Marine reconnaissance battalion in Vietnam from the day of its arrival to its withdrawal. In Vietnam, Larry Vetter served as a platoon leader in Third Recon Battalion. He supplements his own recollections with Marine Corps records, exhaustive interviews with veterans, and correspondence to capture the bravery, and self-sacrifice of war.From the Paperback edition.
Never a Girl, Always a Boy: A Family Memoir of a Transgender Journey
by Jo IvesterJeremy Ivester is a transgender man. Thirty years ago, his parents welcomed him into the world as what they thought was their daughter. As a child, he preferred the toys and games our society views as masculine. He kept his hair short and wore boys’ clothing. They called him a tomboy. That’s what he called himself. By high school, when he showed no interest in flirting, his parents thought he might be lesbian. At twenty, he wondered if he was asexual. At twenty-three, he surgically removed his breasts. A year later, he began taking the hormones that would lower his voice and give him a beard—and he announced his new name and pronouns. Never a Girl, Always a Boy is Jeremy’s journey from childhood through coming out as transgender and eventually emerging as an advocate for the transgender community. This is not only Jeremy’s story but also that of his family, told from multiple perspectives—those of the siblings who struggled to understand the brother they once saw as a sister, and of the parents who ultimately joined him in the battle against discrimination. This is a story of acceptance in a world not quite ready to accept.
Never a Lovely So Real: The Life And Work Of Nelson Algren
by Colin AsherThis definitive biography reclaims Nelson Algren as a towering literary figure and finally unravels the enigma of his disappearance from American letters. For a time, Nelson Algren was America’s most famous author, lauded by the likes of Richard Wright and Ernest Hemingway. Millions bought his books. Algren’s third novel, The Man with the Golden Arm, won the first National Book Award, and Frank Sinatra starred in the movie. But despite Algren’s talent, he abandoned fiction and fell into obscurity. The cause of his decline was never clear. Some said he drank his talent away; others cited writer’s block. The truth, hidden in the pages of his books, is far more complicated and tragic. Now, almost forty years after Algren’s death, Colin Asher finally captures the full, novelistic story of his life in a magisterial biography set against mid-twentieth-century American politics and culture. Drawing from interviews, archival correspondence, and the most complete version of Algren’s 886-page FBI file ever released, Colin Asher portrays Algren as a dramatic iconoclast. A member of the Communist Party in the 1930s, Algren used his writing to humanize Chicago’s underclass, while excoriating the conservative radicalism of the McCarthy era. Asher traces Algren’s development as a thinker, his close friendship and falling out with Richard Wright, and his famous affair with Simone de Beauvoir. Most intriguingly, Asher uncovers the true cause of Algren’s artistic exile: a reckless creative decision that led to increased FBI scrutiny and may have caused a mental breakdown. In his second act, Algren was a vexing figure who hid behind a cynical facade. He called himself a “journalist” and a “loser,” though many still considered him one of the greatest living American authors. An inspiration to writers such as Hunter S. Thompson, Martha Gellhorn, Jimmy Breslin, Betty Friedan, Cormac McCarthy, Don DeLillo, Russell Banks, and Thomas Pynchon, Algren nevertheless struggled to achieve recognition, and died just as his career was on the verge of experiencing a renaissance. Never a Lovely So Real offers an exquisitely detailed, engrossing portrait of a master who, as esteemed literary critic Maxwell Geismar wrote, was capable of suggesting “the whole contour of a human life in a few terse pages.”
Never a Mother to Me
by Tracy BlackIn her first book, Never a Hero to Me, Tracy Black told the horrific story of how her father, a respected Army man, was in fact a heartless paedophile who convinced Tracy that her mother's health was completely dependent on her willingness to be abused. In her new book, Tracy continues her shocking story by telling how her mother closed her eyes to the cruelty, treating her little girl with cold indifference. Heartbreakingly Tracy traded her innocence for the love of her mother - love which was never given, no matter how much she suffered. As Tracy approached adulthood, she risked being trapped in damaging sexual relationships. But after years of struggle she found the courage to break out of her past and turn her life around.