The following is an excerpt from Cooking Dirty by Jason Sheehan. Be sure to check out Chris Teja’s recent interview with Sheehan.
Prologue: Florida, 1998
Saturday night, early, no one was able to find a rhythm. We kept getting popped, then stalled, taking five tables like BangBangBangBangBang, then nothing for ten minutes. The FNG fell into [...]

The following is an excerpt from Philip Smith’s Walking Through Walls. Be sure to check out our interview with Smith here.
PROLOGUE
It was late July.
The summer mangoes had dropped from the trees and were lying rotting on the ground, ripped open by feasting bugs and birds.  Their intoxicating sweet smell mixed with the heaviness of the [...]

Kipp Friedman returns for a piece about the office of his father, the famous playwright and novelist Bruce Jay Friedman. Check out “The Barracuda in the Attic” and Kipp’s other piece for SMITH.

The following is an excerpt from Lynne Sharon Schwartz’s new memoir, Not Now, Voyager. Be sure to read Rebecca Touger’s interview with the author on writing, travel, and living abroad.
Orkos
I woke abruptly, to a darkness so thick I could breathe it in. My mind was ominously alert, none of that blurry, dream-clogged puzzlement that usually [...]

The following is an excerpt from Wade Rouse’s new memoir, At Least in the City Someone Would Hear Me Scream. Be sure to check out our interview with him about the book, his writing process, and life without designer shoes.
Coonskin Cap
There’s a raccoon on my head.
And I don’t particularly look good in hats.
Especially when they’re [...]

The following is an excerpt from Loon: A Marine Story, Jack McLean’s memoir about joining the Marine Corps in the mid-sixties. Be sure to check out Chris Teja’s interview with McLean.
Chapter One
June 6, 1968.
It had already been a long day, and dawn had yet to break.
On his hands and knees, Bill Matthews scampered up over [...]

The following is the opening passage from Danzy Senna’s Where Did You Sleep Last Night: A Personal History. The memoir chronicles her family’s history and their complicated racial identities. And be sure to read Rebecca Touger’s interview with Senna.
In 1975 my mother left my father for the last time. We fled to Guilford, Connecticut. It [...]

The following is the preface from The Ramen King and I: How the Inventor of Instant Noodles Fixed My Love Life. And be sure to read Ty Wenger’s interview with author Andy Raskin.
“It is said that real human nature reveals itself under extreme conditions. As I starved in prison, I realized that eating was one [...]

Humorist Joe Queenan turns a serious eye to his childhood in his new memoir, Closing Time. He writes about his abusive, alcoholic father and growing up poor in Irish Catholic Philadelphia. This week, he spoke with Adam Rose about the memoir, and you can read an excerpt from the opening chapter below.
Chapter 1. The Man [...]

“Regardless of her motive, when a wife shields herself from controversy, the strength of her buttressing is bulldog tough. It’s not a Green Curtain. Sweetie, it’s a brick wall.”
The ramifications of vowing “for better or for worse” in a military marriage are heightened—I’m attached, by law and in spirit, to my husband, and by association, [...]