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In between, the kid racked up some legends. When he was 8, they moved back to the country, and "everything went to shit." Fitzgerald’s anger and despair about the violence and chaos of the years that followed are so deep that they form a kind of bass line to the text, carrying through to the end. In urban Boston, where his mother worked for the Catholic Church, the author experienced a happy but poor childhood. Maybe I could write legends of my own, even though I was often too drunk to write anything down." The author begins this collection of personal legends with a line that he's been using for decades: "My parents were married when they had me, just to different people." What's more, they met at divinity school. "All the big drinking books, by big loud men….Life could be tough,” he writes, “but it could also be the stuff of legend. When business was slow, he read paperbacks from the used bookstore down the block. This is a book readers will want to share, a book deeply rooted in the personal that is also an education-perhaps even a lifeline, a rollicking great read that contributes to the cultural conversation and maybe even nudges us a little outside our complacency while keeping us enthralled.Down and out in rural Massachusetts, San Francisco, New York City, and Burma.įor a stretch in his 20s, Fitzgerald worked at an iconic biker bar in San Francisco called Zeitgeist.

Gritty, clear-eyed, at times even beautiful, the essays in Dirtbag, Massachusetts explore poverty, drinking, ambition, abuse, the Church, body image, attempts at forgiveness-all while showing that adventure and exploration and curiosity are wonderful things, so long as you aren't hurting others and learn from your mistakes. From growing up in a homeless shelter in Boston to bartending in San Francisco, from smuggling medical supplies into Burma to embracing the literary world in New York, Fitzgerald strives for a different view of masculinity, one that aims to put aside anger, isolation, and entitlement and embraces the idea that one can be generous and kind to ourselves by being generous and kind to others.

This striking memoir, told through a series of personal essays, recounts an extraordinary story of childhood trauma and self-acceptance, and the struggle to be, well, a better man. The beloved founding editor of BuzzFeed Books searches for a more expansive vision of masculinity in these remarkable personal essays-with life mistakes are my co-pilot as his motto.

This striking memoir, told through a series of personal essays, re.