Description
Book Synopsis Gerald McCarthy enlisted in the Marines at 17 and volunteered for Vietnam. After the war he went AWOL, then to civilian jails and military brigs and finally to a Navy psychiatric ward, where he witnessed patient-attempted suicides. Medically discharged, he returned home to upstate New York and piecework in shoe factories. Written in two voices--one lucid, one dreamlike--his memoir delivers a jump-cut narrative of his troubled adolescence, his wartime experiences and his struggle to come unstuck from his own life.
Table of Contents
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction
- Part I. Marking Time
- 1. Dancing in the Dark
- 2. Like a Rolling Stone
- 3. What About Me
- 4. Miles from Nowhere
- 5. One Fine Day
- 6. Will the Circle Be Unbroken?
- 7. Keep On Pushing
- 8. Here, There and Everywhere
- 9. New Beginnings
- Part II. Going South
- 10. Standing in the Shadows of Love
- 11. Sunny
- 12. Chain of Fools
- 13. Where Do We Go from Here?
- 14. Have You Ever Seen the Rain?
- 15. Darkness, Darkness
- 16. Who'll Stop the Rain?
- 17. Carry That Weight
- 18. Slippin' into Darkness
- Part III. Nothing for Nothing
- 19. Four Days Gone
- 20. Running on Empty
- 21. When You Awake
- 22. New Beginnings
- Part IV. In the Zone
- 23. I Walk the Line
- 24. I Got Dreams to Remember
- 25. If You Want Me to Stay
- 26. There's a Hole in the Future
- 27. Goin' Out of My Head
- 28. Song of the Wind
- 29. Catch the Wind
- 30. My Back Pages
- 31. Ain't Nothing Like the Real Thing
- 32. New Beginnings
- Part V. Waking
- 33. Slippin' into Darkness
- 34. Working Class Hero
- 35. Going Down Slowly
- 36. Be True to Your School
- 37. Homeward Bound
- 38. Where Did You Sleep Last Night?
- 39. Sweet Melissa
- 40. The Other Side of the Sky
- Part VI. Back Stories
- 41. Going in Circles
- 42. A House Is Not a Home
- 43. Estate
- 44. Dedicated to You
- 45. Sometimes I Feel Like a Motherless Child
- 46. Hurt
- Part VII. Falling Forward
- 47. In a Sentimental Mood
- 48. Winter in America
- 49. (Who Wrote) The Book of Love?
- 50. Pavane
- 51. Rivers of My Fathers
- 52. When I'm Gone
- Epilogue: Collateral Damage
- Music/Playlist Credits
- Books: A Short List
- Index
