Confessions of a left-handed man : an artist's memoir / by Peter Selgin.

ISBN:

9781609380571

Title:

Author:

Selgin, Peter.

Personal Author:

Selgin, Peter.

Publication Information:

Physical Description:

1 online resource (194 pages).

Series:

The Iowa series in literary nonfiction

Sightline books.

Contents:

Acknowledgments; Dead to Rights: Confessions of a Caricaturist; Dagos in Mayberry; Black Words on Yellow Paper; Straight Job; Gjetost; To Die of Italy; Keeping Up with the Days; Estranged on a Train; Damian (The Green Jacket); Restaurant; After the Planet Uranus; Confessions of a Left-Handed Man; Painting Icebergs: A Titanic Obsession; Dirty Books; My Locomotive God; The Man from Stanboul; P. and I; Alone: Two Types of Solitude; The Swimming Pool.

Local Note:

eBooks on EBSCOhost

Personal Subject:

Selgin, Peter.

Selgin, Peter. (OCoLC)fst01935981

Subject Term:

Authors, American -- 21st century -- Biography.

BIOGRAPHY & AUTOBIOGRAPHY -- Literary.

LITERARY CRITICISM -- American -- General.

Authors, American. (OCoLC)fst00821764

Format:

Electronic Resources

Electronic Access:

http://ezproxy.angliss.edu.au/login?direct=true&scope=site&db=nlebk&AN=380970

Publication Date:

2011

Publication Information:

Available:*

Shelf Number	Material Type	Copy	Shelf Location	Status
813.6 22	1:E-BOOK	1	1:ONLINE	Searching... Unknown

Bound With These Titles

On Order

Summary

Peter Selgin was cursed/blessed with an unusual childhood. The son of Italian immigrants--his father an electronics inventor and a mother so good looking UPS drivers swerved off their routes to see her--Selgin spent his formative years scrambling among the hat factory ruins of a small Connecticut town, visiting doting--and dotty--relatives in the "old world," watching mental giants clash at Mensa gatherings, enduring Pavlovian training sessions with a grandmother bent on "curing" his left-handedness, and competing savagely with his right-handed twin.

It's no surprise, then, that Selgin went on from these peculiar beginnings to do . . . well, nearly everything. Confessions of a Left-Handed Man is a bold, unblushing journey down roads less traveled. Whether recounting his work driving a furniture delivery truck, his years as a caricaturist, his obsession with the Titanic that compelled him to complete seventy-five paintings of the ship(in sinking and nonsinking poses), or his daily life as a writer, from start to finish readers are treated to a vividly detailed, sometimes hilarious, often moving, but always memorable life. In this modern-day picaresque, Selgin narrates an artist's journey from unconventional roots through gritty experience to artistic achievement. With an elegant narrative voice that is, by turns, frank, witty, and acid-tongued, Selgin confronts his past while coming to terms with approaching middle age, reaching self-understanding tempered by reflection, regret, and a sharply self-deprecating sense of humor.

Author Notes

Peter Selgin is currently the Viebranz Distinguished Writer in Residence at St. Lawrence University, in Canton, New York. Winner of the 2007 Flannery O'Connor Award for Fiction for his story collection Drowning Lessons , Selgin has also published a novel, Life Goes to the Movies , and two works on the fiction writer's craft, 179 Ways to Save a Novel: Matters of Vital Concern to Fiction Writers and By Cunning and Craft: Sound Advice and Practical Wisdom for Fiction Writers .

Reviews (1)

Publisher's Weekly Review

In this witty collection of autobiographical essays, Selgin (Drowning Lessons) clambers atop the building blocks of an artistic life to survey its attendant struggles and epiphanies. First, Selgin was a visual artist, a mentally and physically taxing vocation he recalls in "Dead to Rights: Confessions of a Caricaturist." Able to quickly capture his subject's essence in pen-and-ink (it's all in the eyes), Selgin worked for a decade in the bizarre world of birthday and other entertainment party caricaturists, until quitting to write. The title essay, in which he recounts the dog attack that threatened his career and muses on the meaning of left-handedness, beautifully melds the personal and the philosophical. Yet the strongest pieces do not overtly relate to Selgin's artistic pursuits but instead detail his relationship with his family. In "Dagos in Mayberry," he recounts his experiences as the son of Italian immigrants in a small Connecticut town, where his parents' "otherness" both pleased and embarrassed him (his mother's cooking and his father's insistence on riding a rusty bike while wearing black knee socks, respectively). As evidenced by "Restaurant," which brings a childhood game to bear on the author's newfound role as caretaker of his ailing father, Selgin deftly balances humor and tenderness throughout these life-affirming confessions. (Oct.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.