The Bomb Inside My Brain
$13, 5 x 8, 285 pages
All heart, no politics this time around. Four dozen gut-ripping, heart-stomping, mind-stabbing essays about brain surgery, heartache, broken friendship, family alienation, drugs, religion, PTSD, and fatherhood. More raw emotion than you’re used to from the man his friends call the Iron Marshmallow. This bleedingly personal collection starts off with what Jim considers to be the best thing he ever wrote by FAR—“Ode to Bucky Goad," the harrowing life story of his deaf brother who was murdered in Paris.
Chapter titles:
- Ode to Bucky Goad
- Blood Is Thicker Than Logic
- Born Spastic
- The Bomb Inside My Brain
- Why You’re Dead to Me
- Boys Don’t Cry
- I Hate Your Happy Family
- The Bad Mom
- Combat Training for Toddlers
- 10 Commandments for My Son
- Uncle Juney and Aunt Marion
- Love Among the Damaged
- Slow-Dancing in Wheelchairs
- You Didn’t Mean That? Yes, You Did
- Why I’m Now Against Abortion
- Teenage Jesus Freak
- Fuck You, Father Jones
- The First Time I Got High
- Why I’m an Agnostic
- Serenity Now! Talking to My Father While Tripping Balls
- Acid Beatdown
- Where Has All the Angel Dust Gone?
- No Need to Die Twice: Why I’ll Never Do Ketamine Again
- Doin’ Propofol and Lovin’ It
- Madman of the Catskills
- Better Dead Than on Meds
- Sometimes I Don’t Feel So Bad When an Ex-Friend Dies
- When People Love Animals Too Much
- Pug Fag
- Why Pit Bolls Are the Best Kissers
- Feeding the Nutria
- Don’t Fuck With the Masons
- You Meet the Nicest People in Prison
- The Only Convict Who Couldn’t Get Into Australia
- Small Sip of Success
- Halloween in Da Hood
- Shout at the Jersey Devil
- The Sweetest Man Alive
- My Penis Is Better Than Yours
- Toss Another Bag of Coal on the Christmas Fire
- A World Without Politics
