Confessions of a Left-Handed Man: An Artist's Memoir

by Peter Selgin

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.

248 pages, Paperback

First published October 1, 2011

About the author

Peter Selgin is the author of Drowning Lessons, winner of the 2007 Flannery O’Connor Award for Fiction, Life Goes to the Movies, a novel, two books on the craft of fiction, and two children’s books. His stories and essays have appeared in dozens of magazines and anthologies, including Glimmer Train Stories, Poets & Writers, The Sun, Slate, Colorado Review, Writers and Their Notebooks, Writing Fiction, and Best American Essays 2009. Confessions of a Left-Handed Man: An Artist’s Memoir, was recently published by the University of Iowa Press and was short-listed for the William Saroyan International Prize for Writing. His latest novel, The Water Master, won this years’ Pirate’s Alley / Faulkner Society Prize, and his essay, The Kuhreihen Melody, won the Missouri Review Jeffrey E. Smith Editors’ Prize. Selgin’s visual art has graced the pages of the The New Yorker, The Wall Street Journal, Outside, Gourmet, and other publications. Selgin has had several plays published and produced, including Night Blooming Serious, which won the Mill Mountain Theater Competition. His full-length play, A God in the House, based on Dr. Kevorkian and his suicide device, was a National Playwright’s Conference Winner and later optioned for Off-Broadway. He teaches at Antioch University’s MFA writing program and is Assistant Professor of Creative Writing at Georgia College.

Reviews

[Cynthia Rosi · Rating 4 out of 5]

Selgin takes us through a childhood with a genius father and twin brother, and the events that led to his decision to become an artist and eventually a writer. His adventures in New York, in Europe and Italy reminded me of my own adventures and inspired me to think about new ways of writing about them. I enjoyed the trajectory from young artist to writer, and then to middle-aged writer.
Selgin doesn’t flinch from showing us the price artists pay for their devotion to craft, as well as the freedom we enjoy. Each essay stands on its own two feet. Compiled they make a book that is tightly woven, intellectually interesting, and enjoyable to the end.

[Jeremy Young · Rating 4 out of 5]

Selgin's ability to write about both self and the universal experience of life in all of its serene and vulgar glory is an achievement within itself. The fact that the seemingly haphazard order of the stories comes into focus as the book finishes makes finishing the text satisfying.

Perhaps the greatest story in the text is "Restaurant". Selgin is able to describe his relationship with his father in a beautifully crafted 4 page piece. (I often find my own writing long-winded, which leaves me in awe of such brevity.)

[marymurtz · Rating 2 out of 5]

Meh. I thought a couple of the pieces were good, especially the one about him being a caricature artist, but the rest were rambling and didn't do anything for me. By the time I got to the one about his prostate, I was ready to throw in the towel and when he opened the essay with permission for the squeamish to not read it, I took that as permission to not finish the book at all, with about 25 percent left unread.

Advance Reader Copy from publisher; not yet published.

6/5/11

[Lea · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was immediately 'drawn' into these essays by Peter Selgin - not only because I too am left-handed and hail from CT - but because Peter Selgin seems to have no secrets. Confessions of a Left-Handed Man is hilarious, poignant, at times squirmingly uncomfortable and absolutely satisfying throughout - as any confession worth it's salt oughta be.

[Kodiaksm · Rating 4 out of 5]

Enjoyable short stories about one man.
I was puzzled-why did he stick to the East coast? His lifestyle would be more suitable and enjoyable in the West.