A memoir of motorcycles and muscles, of obsession and grief, and of a young man who learned how to stay alive through literature. At just forty-seven years old, William Giraldi’s father was killed in a horrific motorcycle crash while racing on a country road. This tragedy, which forever altered the young Giraldi and devastated his family, provides the pulse for The Hero’s Body. In the tradition of Andre Dubus III’s Townie, this is a deep-seeing investigation into two generations of men from the working-class town of Manville, New Jersey, including Giraldi’s own forays into obsessive bodybuilding as a teenager desperate to be worthy of his family’s pitiless, exacting codes of manhood. Lauded by The New Yorker for his “unrelenting, perfectly paced prose,” Giraldi writes here with daring, searing honesty about the fragility and might of the American male. An unflinching memoir of luminous sorrow, a son’s tale of a lost father and the ancient family strictures of extreme masculinity, The Hero’s Body is a work of lasting beauty by one of our most fearless writers.

A memoir of motorcycles and muscles, of obsession and grief, and of a young man who learned how to stay alive through literature. At just forty-seven years old, William Giraldi’s father was killed in a horrific motorcycle crash while racing on a country road. This tragedy, which forever altered the young Giraldi and devastated his family, provides the pulse for The Hero’s Body. In the tradition of Andre Dubus III’s Townie, this is a deep-seeing investigation into two generations of men from the working-class town of Manville, New Jersey, including Giraldi’s own forays into obsessive bodybuilding as a teenager desperate to be worthy of his family’s pitiless, exacting codes of manhood. Lauded by The New Yorker for his “unrelenting, perfectly paced prose,” Giraldi writes here with daring, searing honesty about the fragility and might of the American male. An unflinching memoir of luminous sorrow, a son’s tale of a lost father and the ancient family strictures of extreme masculinity, The Hero’s Body is a work of lasting beauty by one of our most fearless writers.

This New York Times bestselling gritty memoir Hero of the Underground offers a no-holds-barred look at the twisted underbelly of a seemingly perfect life. Jason Peter, an All-American football player, captain of the National Champion Nebraska Cornhuskers, first round NFL draft pick. . . and heroin addict. I wasn't afraid of death. How could I be? I lived under death's shadow every day. When you swallow sixty Vicodin, twenty sleeping pills, drink a bottle of vodka, and still survive, a certain sense of invulnerability stays with you. When you continually use drugs with the kind of reckless determination that I did, the limit to how much heroin or crack you can ingest is not defined by dollar amounts but by the amounts your body can withstand without experiencing a seizure or respiratory failure. . . . I found myself contemplating death again. Only this time I wasn't going to leave it to chance. I was going to buy a gun, load the thing, place the barrel in my mouth, and blow my fucking brains out. "Had Hunter Thompson been a football player instead of a fan, this is the book he'd have written. Flat-out, mash-your-face-in-the-dirt amazing." —Jerry Stahl, author of Permanent Midnight

In a realm beset by natural disasters, only the magical abilities of the bonded Pairs—Source and Shield—make the land habitable and keep the citizenry safe. The ties that bind them are far beyond the relationships between lovers or kin—and last their entire lives… Whether they like it or not. Since she was a child, Dunleavy Mallorough has been nurturing her talents as a Shield, preparing for her day of bonding. Unfortunately, fate decrees Lee’s partner to be the legendary, handsome, and unbearably self-assured Lord Shintaro Karish. Sure, he cuts a fine figure with his aristocratic airs and undeniable courage. But Karish’s popularity and notoriety—in bed and out—make him the last Source Lee ever wanted to be stuck with. The duo is assigned to High Scape, a city so besieged by disaster that seven bonded pairs are needed to combat it. But when an inexplicable force strikes down every other Source and Shield, Lee and Karish must put aside their differences in order to defeat something even more unnatural than their reluctant affections for each other…

At just 47, William Giraldi's father was killed in a motorcycle crash. This tragedy, which forever altered the young Giraldi and devastated his family, provides the pulse for The Hero's Body. This is an investigation into three generations of men from the working-class town of Manville, New Jersey, including Giraldi's own adolescent forays into obsessive bodybuilding as a teenager desperate to be worthy of his family's pitiless, exacting codes of manhood. Lauded by The New Yorker for his 'unrelenting, perfectly paced prose,' Giraldi writes with searing honesty about the American male.

Television industry journalist Michael Ausiello tells the story of his final year with his partner of thirteen years, Kit Cowan--diagnosed with a rare and very aggressive form of neuroendocrine cancer--while revisiting the many memories that preceded it, and describes how their undeniably powerful bond carried them through all manner of difficulties, with humor always front and center of the relationship.

The author recalls his painful but ultimately revealing attempts to return home to the rural hills of Kentucky to give back to his community and to record the story of his parents-in-law, Holocaust survivors who had emigrated from Poland in 1946.