Short Synopsis
In a narrative that can be read as both a magnificent act of literary mythmaking and a howl of filial despair, Kent Russell gives us a haunting and unforgettable portrait of an America—and a paradigm of American malehood—we have never before seen.

Full Synopsis
Locked in battle with both his adult appetites and his most private childhood demons, Kent Russell hungers for immersive experience and revelation, and his essays take us to society's ragged edges, the junctures between savagery and civilization. He pitches a tent at an annual four-day music festival in Illinois, among the misunderstood, thick-as-thieves fans who self-identify as Juggalos. He treks to the end of the continent to visit a legendary hockey enforcer, the granddaddy of all tough guys, to see how he's preparing for his last foe: obsolescence. He spends a long weekend getting drunk with a self-immunizer who is willing to prove that he has conditioned his body to withstand the bites of the most venomous snakes. And in the piercing interstitial meditations between these essays, Russell introduces us to his own raging and inimitable forebears.

Blistering and deeply personal, I Am Sorry to Think I Have Raised a Timid Son records Russell's quest to understand, through his journalistic subjects, his own appetites and urges, his persistent alienation, and, above all, his knotty, volatile, vital relationship with his father.

"[T]he pieces examine the pleasure and excitement that violence can stir in people." ---Publishers Weekly

"Russell is an observant, skillful and funny writer." ---Kirkus

"Kent Russell is one of the most excitingly gifted young non-fiction writers to have appeared in recent memory." ---John Jeremiah Sullivan, author of Pulphead

"Reader Sean Pratt does a fine job with the cast of strange individuals Russell encounters." ---Library Journal Audio Review

"With droll humor and sincere compassion, Russell stalwartly exposes himself, and his readers, to his past and to people longing for significance." ---Booklist

"A surprising, beautiful book, at once tough and tender, hilarious and dark, and above all, deeply original." ---NPR.org