About this item
Lucas Mann was only thirteen years old when his brother Josh - charismatic and ambitious, funny and sadistic, violent and vulnerable - died of a heroin overdose. Although his brief life is ultimately unknowable, Josh is both a presence and an absence in the author's life that will not remain unclaimed. As Josh's story is told in kaleidoscopic shards of memories assembled from interviews with his friends and family, as well as from the raw material of his journals, a revealing, startling portrait unfolds. At the same time, Mann pulls back to examine his own complicated feelings and motives for recovering memories of his brother's life, searching for a balance between the tension of inevitability and the what ifs that beg to be asked. Through his investigation, Mann also comes to redefine his own place in a family whose narrative is bisected by the tragic loss.
About the Author
Lucas Mann is the author of Lord Fear: A Memoir, which was named one of the best books of 2015 by The Miami Herald, Kirkus Reviews, Paper Magazine, and Oprah.com, as well as Class A: Baseball in the Middle of Everywhere, a 2013 Barnes and Noble Discover Great New Writers selection. His essays and stories have appeared in Guernica, The Kenyon Review, BuzzFeed, Slate, and TriQuarterly, among others. He earned his M.F.A. from The University of Iowa, and currently lives in Providence, RI, with his wife.
