Dirtbag, Massachusetts: A Confessional

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER
USA TODAY BESTSELLER
Winner of the New England Book Award for Nonfiction

"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"

A TIME Must-Read Book of the Year * A Rolling Stone Top Culture Pick * A Publishers Weekly Best Memoir of the Season * A Buzzfeed Book Pick * A Goodreads Readers' Most Anticipated Book * A Chicago Tribune Book Pick * A Boston.com Book You Should Read * A Los Angeles Times Book to Add to Your Reading List * An Entertainment Weekly Best Book of the Month

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 humor, 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.

Author: Isaac Fitzgerald
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Published: 07/19/2022
Pages: 256
Binding Type: Hardcover
Weight: 0.90lbs
Size: 8.40h x 5.50w x 1.20d
ISBN: 9781635573978

Review Citation(s):
Library Journal Prepub Alert 12/01/2021 pg. 21
Kirkus Reviews 04/15/2022
Publishers Weekly 04/18/2022
Library Journal 06/01/2022 pg. 154
Booklist 06/01/2022 pg. 14

About the Author
Isaac Fitzgerald appears frequently on The Today Show and is the author of the bestselling children's book How to Be a Pirate as well as the co-author of Pen & Ink and Knives & Ink (winner of an IACP Award). His writing has appeared in the New York Times, the Guardian, the Best American Nonrequired Reading, and numerous other publications. He lives in Brooklyn.