Memories from a Sinking Ship A Novel

Praise for Barry Gifford: "Gifford cuts right through to the heart of what makes a good novel readable and entertaining. . . . The way Barry Gifford does it, it's high art."-Elmore Leonard "Barry Gifford is all the proof the world will ever need that a writer who listens with his heart is capable of telling anyone's story."-Armistead Maupin "Barry Gifford is a great writer, may Heaven and all help him, consequently." -William Saroyan "Nearly every Gifford story opens a Pandora's Box of uncontainable emotions. . . . There's no one like Barry Gifford, which is the best reason to read him."-Richard Dyer, The Boston Globe In this episodic novel, Barry Gifford lays bare his young heart, exploring the hopes and disappointments of a uniquely American childhood and adolescence. He recounts his travels with his mother, spent considering the intersection of the landscape and their lives, and an ailing gangster father, most conspicuously influential in his son's life by his absence. Memories from a Sinking Ship conjures an era-the late 1940s through the early 1960s-and places-Chicago, the Florida Keys, New Orleans-to which we can never return. The author of more than forty published works of fiction, nonfiction, and poetry, which have been translated into more than twenty-five languages, Barry Gifford is an American writer in the European tradition, an hommes des lettres. His novel Wild at Heart was made into an award-winning film by David Lynch. He has also received awards from the ALA, PEN, and the NEA.