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Michael Jay

Born

Detroit

Website

https://dogwaterfree.com

Genre

Memoir, Psychology, Young Adult

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Michael Jay is an American author, education advocate, and resort community developer whose award-winning memoir, Dog Water Free, explores the moral and emotional formation of a boy confronting love, loss, and responsibility during the defining years of adolescence.

Detroit-born, Michael attended Detroit Catholic Central High School with the help of an anonymous benefactor, graduated from Harvard College, and earned an MBA from Northeastern University. In his career, he has developed award-winning destination resort villages, including the Village at Squaw Valley USA in California (now Palisades Tahoe) and Tamarack Village at Tamarack Resort in Idaho.

Throughout his career, as a Harvard College Admissions Committee Alumni Interviewer, Michael Michael Jay is an American author, education advocate, and resort community developer whose award-winning memoir, Dog Water Free, explores the moral and emotional formation of a boy confronting love, loss, and responsibility during the defining years of adolescence.

Detroit-born, Michael attended Detroit Catholic Central High School with the help of an anonymous benefactor, graduated from Harvard College, and earned an MBA from Northeastern University. In his career, he has developed award-winning destination resort villages, including the Village at Squaw Valley USA in California (now Palisades Tahoe) and Tamarack Village at Tamarack Resort in Idaho.

Throughout his career, as a Harvard College Admissions Committee Alumni Interviewer, Michael has advocated on behalf of high school students across the Western United States, listening closely to the formative questions young people ask as they prepare for adulthood. That work deeply informs Dog Water Free, a coming-of-age memoir focused on the years when character is shaped long before clarity arrives. Michael Jay lives in Idaho.
AWARDS
Recognized as a Distinguished Favorite by the NYC Big Book Award Committee and honored with an IndieBRAG Medallion for Nonfiction, this full-hearted memoir has the engaging quality of a "truth is stranger than fiction" adventure.
ABOUT THE BOOK
Dog Water Free captures the turbulent yet transformative years between childhood and early adulthood. Called a “mother-son memoir of lasting consequence” by a past president of the Women’s National Book Association (Lynn Henriksen), this memoir of formation follows Mikee, a middle child. His early adolescence is defined by a maelstrom of fateful events involving a solemn, prayerful bargain made in response to his mother’s terminal illness and then irrevocably altered by the sudden death of his father. It begins in a working-class neighborhood in Detroit and ends on the island of Nantucket before the candles are lit to celebrate his 26th birthday.

As Mikee attempts to interpret grief through a child’s flawed logic, the narrative traces how values are absorbed, not through strict instruction or adolescent rebellion, but through sustained observation of a parent living with dignity under pressure. Rather than framing maturity as escape or rupture, Dog Water Free locates meaning in endurance, stewardship, and the quiet inheritance of conduct that could only be endowed by an enlightened mother whose days are numbered. ...more

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Michael Jay’s books

Average rating: 4.12 · 57 ratings · 6 reviews · 8 distinct works

	Gay Love Signs: The New Astrology Guide for Men Who Love Men 3.94 avg rating — 34 ratings — published 1980 — 6 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Book of Heroes: Volume I of The Books Of Magic by Jordan Bennett (Goodreads Author), Michael Jay 4.47 avg rating — 15 ratings — 2 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Book of Blood: Volume III of The Books of Magic by Jordan Bennett, Michael Jay 4.67 avg rating — 3 ratings — 2 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Genocide by Sean Sheehan, Michael Jay 3.67 avg rating — 3 ratings — published 2004 — 3 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Book of Legends : Volume II of The Books of Magic by Jordan Bennett, Michael Jay 4.50 avg rating — 2 ratings	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Tinners Way by Kurt Jackson, Michael Jay it was amazing 5.00 avg rating — 1 rating	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Book of Legends (Volume II of The Books of Magic) by Jordan Bennett (Goodreads Author), Michael Jay really liked it 4.00 avg rating — 1 rating	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	On the Edge of Twilight by Tom Rickman, John Miller (Goodreads Author), Michael Jay 0.00 avg rating — 0 ratings — published 2002	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars

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Quotes by Michael Jay (?)

“It’s a neighborhood where every dad has at least one job and where parents often end conversations with the words: no guts, no glory.”
― Michael Jay, Dog Water Free

tags: coming-of-age, detroit, orphan, true-story

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“I dream therefore I am." - Marge to her young son Mikee”
― Michael Jay, Dog Water Free

tags: courage, inspirational, mom

0 likes

“What in the world could this family have done to deserve a fate such as this?”
― Michael Jay, Dog Water Free

tags: coming-of-age, inspirational, true-story

0 likes

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