Drive Me Out Of My Mind

Drive Me Out of My Mind is a coming-of-age story of wildness and wandering set primarily in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan—its abandoned iron mines, desperate small towns, and heart-breaking bars. It’s the memoir of a boy raised by lawless and itinerant women and how he was cultured—and corrupted—by their hard-living, hard-drinking, and hard-loving ways. Given this lot in life, Faries tells how one boy was hurt into becoming a poet at the ripe age of two—to imagine another world other than the daily madness in front of him—a world where violent stalkers hovered over the hospital beds of women as they gave birth, where father figures also copulated with Gramma, where a worn Barbie doll was a main source of comfort, and where home meant 24 anonymous hovels in 10 years.

Every Sunday evening, millions of viewers tune in to 60 Minutes to hear Andy Rooney riff on everything from coffee percolators to the state of the union. Millions more read his weekly newspaper column. Why? Because Rooney tells it like it is. But Rooney fans have never seen him quite like this. Andy Rooney is plain frustrated by what's going on in America and the world. Why can't Americans—let alone our president—speak English anymore? How do we expect to fight a terrorist enemy that we can't even locate? And when did capitalism go so terribly wrong? This book isn't all heady stuff, though. Readers will also get the familiar—and hysterical—Rooney gripes about everyday foibles, such as the impossibility of physically locating your driver's registration, of purchasing a genuinely healthy breakfast cereal, or of enjoying a college reunion—unless everyone ends up in their nighties, that is. PublicAffairs is pleased to present its fifth collaboration with Andy Rooney. Loyal Rooney fans and anyone who enjoys a good laugh at life's absurdities will be thrilled to add it to the bookshelf during the holidays.

Considered by many to be mentally retarded, a brilliant, impatient fifth-grader with cerebral palsy discovers a technological device that will allow her to speak for the first time.