Dirtbag, Massachusetts

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What to expect

Bloomsbury presents Dirtbag, Massachusetts written and read by Isaac Fitzgerald.

* THE INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER *
* WINNER OF THE 2022 NEW ENGLAND BOOK AWARD FOR NON-FICTION *

'A heart on the sleeve, demons in check, eyes unblinking, unbearably sad, laugh-out-loud funny revelation' MARLON JAMES

Isaac Fitzgerald has lived many lives. He's been an altar boy, a bartender, a fat kid, a smuggler, a biker, a prince of New England. But before all that, he was a bomb that exploded his parents’ lives – or so he was told. In Dirtbag, Massachusetts, Fitzgerald, with warmth and humour, recounts his ongoing search for forgiveness, a more far-reaching vision of masculinity, and a more expansive definition of family and self.

Fitzgerald’s memoir-in-essays begins with a childhood that moves at breakneck speed from safety to violence, recounting an extraordinary pilgrimage through trauma to self-understanding and, ultimately, acceptance. From growing up in a Boston homeless shelter to bartending in San Francisco, from smuggling medical supplies into Burma to his lifelong struggle to make peace with his body, Fitzgerald strives to take control of his own story: one that aims to put aside anger, isolation and entitlement to embrace the idea that one can be generous to oneself by being generous to others.

Gritty and clear-eyed, loud-hearted and beautiful, Dirtbag, Massachusetts is a rollicking book that might also be a lifeline.

'I felt more alive after reading these essays' ALEXANDER CHEE
'Isaac Fitzgerald will make you feel absolutely everything' ROXANE GAY
'This book will be a key in the lock of many hearts and minds' EMMA STRAUB

Critics Review

Fitzgerald nestles comfortably on a bar stool beside writers like Kerouac, Bukowski, Richard Price and Pete Hamill . . . An endearing and tattered catalog of one man’s transgressions and the ways in which it is our sins, far more than our virtues, that make us who we are

New York Times Book Review

Isaac Fitzgerald’s memoir-in-essays is a bighearted read infused with candor, sharp humor, and the hope that comes from discovering saints can be found in all sorts of places

Rolling Stone

Fitzgerald reflects on his origins?and coming to terms with self-consciousness, anger, and strained family relationships. His writing is gritty yet vulnerable

TIME

Fitzgerald never stopped searching for a community that would embrace him. That search took him from San Francisco to Burma (now Myanmar), and he candidly shares the formative experiences that helped him put aside anger to live with acceptance and understanding

Washington Post

The best of what memoir can accomplish . . . pulling no punches on the path to truth, but it always finds the capacity for grace and joy

Esquire, Best Memoirs of the Year

[Fitzgerald] reflects on how his journey has both formed him as a man and helped to change his views of masculinity, race and identity. And while his recollections are pervaded by considerations of manliness, he never shuts out other genders or ways of being

Los Angeles Times

Isaac Fitzgerald contains multitudes in this frank, engaging memoir: severely lapsed Catholic, lifelong rabble-rouser, well-inked tattoo aficionado. [The tales] recounted here find the bittersweet spot between dirtbag and sublime

Entertainment Weekly

Any fool can confess. It’s the rare writer who reveals, and Dirtbag, Massachusetts is a heart on the sleeve, demons in check, eyes unblinking, unbearably sad, laugh-out-loud funny revelation

Marlon James, Winner of the Booker Prize

Dirtbag, Massachusetts is a wondrously crafted confessional in every sense of the word, one of the finest, and really sneakiest narrative boasts I’ve read in decades. Isaac Fitzgerald will remind you of the wobbly majesty possible when fears of tomorrow and yesterday are innovatively confronted and masculinity is shredded. Goodness gracious

Kiese Laymon, author of HEAVY

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