And by the way, did you know the guy that founded VICE also went on to spawn that currently notorious band of Brothers the Proud Boys? I sure didn’t, but then I lead sheltered life, safe from such enticing ephemera.

In line with Tara Westhover and J.D.Vance and their flag waving followers, our boy Isaac emerges triumphant from all that oppresses to join in family Thanksgivings and Christmases, where his siblings freely provide the cuddly gift of grandchildren to sooth the bruised memories, rendering the future somewhat bearable. Intriguing departures from the abuse shocker norm include a scholarship funded escape to a fancy boarding school where the wealthy kids, bucking the trend, treated him with an almost magical kindness, indulging the orphan in weekend trips to parent-provided pleasures of yachts and private aeroplanes, and indeed aeroplanes that take you to where those very yachts are moored, a six month traverse through San Francisco’s porn film industry, where he not only observed but acted, and an extended sojourn with a nominally Christian NGO surreptitiously providing material and medical aid to cruelly oppressed minorities in the remote jungles of Myanmar. As a matter of fact, who wouldn’t choose to do that as a means of escaping in stolen cars from the abusive, poverty-stricken, alcoholic and suicidal household to which he was condemned from the age of four? Fitzgerald manages to outpace the usual braggadocio of the abused child on several fronts, not the least of which is his claim to having a 17-year-old girlfriend when he was 12. Many are the memoirs that tout such souls construct their redemptions from after many decades of denial, avoidance, petty criminality, casual sex and more boozing and doping than you can shake a stick at.

Of course, we are not unfamiliar with the wounds that troubled, abusive families come armed with. While comparisons to the likes of Kerouac seem a tad overblown, the author does provide a guided tour through the seamier sides of life that your average page turner, pausing for a breather between one dull duty and another, might not be so thoroughly acquainted with. Who could resist the title Dirtbag, Massachusetts? Or the notion that the book was a confessional and not just another memoir? Or the breezy chapter titles like “ When Your Barber Assumes You’re Racist Too? “ Not I, sir, not I. Tras-os-Montes, Jose-Flore Tappy (Mad Hat Press 2021) The Most Charming Creatures, Gary Barwin (ECW 2022) Intimations, Zadie Smith (Hamish Hamilton, 2020)

The Razor’s Edge, Karl Jirgens (The Porcupine’s Quill 2022)Ī Minor Chorus, Billy-Ray Belcourt (Hamish Hamilton 2022) Dirtbag, Massachusetts, Isaac Fitzgerald (Bloomsbury 2022)Īll Of This, Rebecca Woolf (Harper One 2022)Įlizabeth Finch, Julian Barnes (Random House 2022)

Dirtbag massachusetts review