Isaac Fitzgerald
New York Times Bestseller • USA Today Bestseller • Winner of the New England Book Award for Nonfiction
“Fitzgerald nestles comfortably on a bar stool beside writers like Kerouac, Bukowski, Richard Price and Pete Hamill…The book’s charm is in its telling of male misbehavior and, occasionally, the things we men get right. The fights nearly all come with forgiveness. It is about the ways men struggle to make sense of themselves and the romance men too often find in the bottom of a bottle of whiskey... an endearing and tattered catalog of one man’s transgressions and the ways in which it is our sins, far more than our virtues, that make us who we are.”
—New York Times Book Review
“Isaac Fitzgerald’s memoir-in-essays is a bighearted read infused with candor, sharp humor, and the hope that comes from discovering saints can be found in all sorts of places.”
—Rolling Stone, "Top Culture Picks of the Month"
“Dirtbag, Massachusetts is the best of what memoir can accomplish. It's blisteringly honest and vulnerable, pulling no punches on the path to truth, but it always finds the capacity for grace and joy.”
—Esquire, "Best Memoirs of the Year"
“Told without piety or violin strains of uplift, but rather, an embrace of the chaos of just getting by.”
—Chicago Tribune, "Books for Summer 2022: Our Picks"
“Fitzgerald reflects on his origins―and coming to terms with self-consciousness, anger, and strained family relationships. His writing is gritty yet vulnerable.”
—TIME, "27 New Books You Need to Read This Summer"
“Fitzgerald never stopped searching for a community that would embrace him. That search took him from San Francisco to Burma (now Myanmar), and he candidly shares the formative experiences that helped him put aside anger to live with acceptance and understanding.”
—Washington Post, "12 Noteworthy Books for July"
"Fitzgerald’s project of openhearted self-interrogation still feels refreshing in a culture where men are socialized to bury their pain, or worse, turn it back on the world as misplaced resentment…In their casual, looping trajectories, some of Fitzgerald’s essays seem to mimic active processing, like a heart-to-heart over beers. It takes a great deal of trust to commit one’s shames ― and more than that, the shames of others ― to the page with honesty. Messily, lovingly, Fitzgerald lays it bare."
—The Los Angeles Review of Books
“[Fitzgerald] reflects on how his journey has both formed him as a man and helped to change his views of masculinity, race and identity. And while his recollections are pervaded by considerations of manliness, he never shuts out other genders or ways of being.”
—Los Angeles Times
"Isaac Fitzgerald contains multitudes in this frank, engaging memoir: severely lapsed Catholic, lifelong rabble-rouser, well-inked tattoo aficionado. [The tales] recounted here find the bittersweet spot between dirtbag and sublime."
—Entertainment Weekly, "Best New Books of July"
“A modern look at what it’s like to feel lost in America… he manages to handle these indisputably heavy subjects with clear-eyed, darkly humorous care… Dirtbag, Massachusetts is a confession in all the best senses of the word… Fitzgerald shows again and again that there is beauty to be found amid the pain, as hard as it can be to look. It’s a fitting lesson from a writer who is clearly as talented as he is tattooed.”
—San Francisco Chronicle
“Introspective yet entertaining…The book’s highlight is a 45-page essay titled ‘Maybe I Could Die This Way.’ It starts off with Fitzgerald giving away his motorcycle because he knew he was in trouble after driving 70 miles back to San Francisco blackout drunk from Santa Cruz…Near the chapter’s end, Fitzgerald revisits that motorcycle incident with a twist designed to make you reflect, both on the stories we tell ourselves about our lives and how we must constantly find new ways to connect and bring meaning to the world. Like every story in Dirtbag, Massachusetts, it’s one worth hearing.”
—Boston Globe