Ghosts of My Old Dominionstares down the long shadow of the Civil War to reveal how the past haunts the present. Author Greg Bottoms presents fourteen autobiographical tales about his experiences growing up in working-class Virginia during the 1970s and 1980s, followed by a meticulously researched novella that considers the horrors and sorrows Walt Whitman faced while caring for sick and wounded soldiers convalescing at hospitals in Virginia and Washington, DC, from 1862 to 1865.

Best Creative Nonfiction of the South, of which this Virginia collection is the first volume, serves as a valuable resource for scholars, students, writers, and general readers interested in creative nonfiction both from specific areas of the South and across the region as a whole. The writers included in each volume come from diverse backgrounds, generations, and artistic traditions. Most, if not all, volumes in the series indirectly reflect literary changes over time and/or how ...

In an intricately linked series of poetic, short tales set in a 1983 suburb, Greg Bottoms portrays his life as one of two "at–risk" boys as they attempt to learn how to be—and what it means to be—men.By turns funny, disquieting, and moving, Fight Scenes takes an unsparing look at juvenile disaffection and the dark side of white, working–class masculinity. By narrating his experiences with childhood buddy Mark, Bottoms shows how many of America's young men ...

An innovative, hybrid work of literary nonfiction, Lowest White Boy takes its title from Lyndon Johnson’s observation during the civil rights era: “If you can convince the lowest white man he’s better than the best colored man, he won’t notice you’re picking his pocket.”Greg Bottoms writes about growing up white and working class in Tidewater, Virginia, during school desegregation in the 1970s. He offers brief stories that accumulate to reveal the everyday experience of li...

In Pitiful Criminals, Greg Bottoms offers thirteen genre–bending chapters from his past that take a close look at the lives of small–time criminals driven, often by confusion and desperation, to deeds that range from the absurd to the heinous. We meet the author's schizophrenic arsonist brother, a depressed pot grower, a damaged ex–dealer who barely escaped a violent burglary, a born–again teenage shooter, and other alienated Americans pushed to extremes by psychology and circumst...

In Spiritual American Trash, Greg Bottoms goes beyond the examination of eight "outsider artists" and inhabits the spirit of their work and stories in engaging vignettes. From the janitor who created a holy throne room out of scraps in a garage, to the lonely wartime mother who filled her home with driftwood replicas of Bible scenes, Bottoms illustrates the peculiar grace in madness.Using facts as scaffolding he constructs intimate narratives around each artist, painting t...

"My brother saw the face of God. You never recover from a trauma like that."So begins Angelhead, a taut, powerful memoir of the madness and crime that rips a family apart."I didn't see God, of course, but I saw my brother seeing God; I saw how petrified he was, how convinced."Set in Tidewater, Virginia, in the 1980s and early 1990s, Angelhead documents the violent, drug-addled, schizophrenic descent of the author's brother, Michael....

An innovative, hybrid work of literary nonfiction, Lowest White Boy takes its title from Lyndon Johnson's observation during the civil rights era: "If you can convince the lowest white man he's better than the best colored man, he won't notice you're picking his pocket."Greg Bottoms writes about growing up white and working class in Tidewater, Virginia, during school desegregation in the 1970s. He offers brief stories that accumulate to reveal the everyday experie...

Stephen Reid has grown old in prison and seen more than his share of its solitude, its vicious cycles, and its subculture relationships. He has participated in the economics of contraband, the incredible escapes, the intimacies of torture, the miscarriages of justice, and witnessed the innocent souls whose childhood destinies doomed them to prison life. He has learned that everything is bearable, that the painful separation of family, children, and friend is tolerable, and that sorrow must...

“One of the best books about going crazy . . . required reading for those who want to understand insanity from the inside.”—The New York Times Book ReviewMark Vonnegut set out in search of Eden with his VW bug, his girlfriend, his dog, and his ideals. But genetic predisposition and “a whole lot of **** going down” made Mark Vonnegut crazy in a culture that told him “mental illness is a myth” and “schizophrenia is a sane response to an insane society.” Here...

As the proprietor of the legendary Sea Tramp Tattoo Company, in Portland, Oregon, Jeff Johnson has inked gangbangers, age-defying moms, and sociopaths; he’s defused brawls and tended delicate egos. In Tattoo Machine, Johnson illuminates a world where art, drama, and commerce come together in highly entertaining theater. A tattoo shop is no longer a den of outcasts and degenerates, but a place where committed and schooled artists who paint on living canvases develop close b...

“Intelligent but accessible, and often poignant . . . [by] the biggest talents on the essay and blog beat.” —Publishers Weekly (on Vol. 2)Anyone still asking, “What is creative nonfiction?” will find the answer in this collection of artfully crafted, true stories. Selected by Lee Gutkind, the “godfather behind creative nonfiction,” and the staff of Creative Nonfiction, these stories—ranging from immersion journalism to intensely personal essays—illustrate the genr...