Perfect Dirt: And Other Things I've Gotten Wrong

by Keegan Lester

Recounted with humor and honesty, Lester invites us into his life as he struggles with masculinity and searches for a place where he fits.

Words have meaning and meaning evolves over time. In Perfect Dirt , Keegan Lester drags us through his failure to grasp the meaning that always seems to be just beyond his fingertips. These lyrical vignettes depict a lifelong search for home, identity, and the language to say the things we wish we could tell people in the moment.

Born in Southern California to parents who had migrated from West Virginia and South Florida, Lester spent summers with his grandparents in Morgantown, which instilled a deep anchor of place that continued to call to him, an Appalachian at heart even while living in New York City as a poet. As small successes started to come his way—a book and numerous tours—so did crises. Lester’s father, meanwhile, experiencing his own life crisis, embarked on a journey to sail the Caribbean. Both end up lost.

Part memoir, part tour diary, part homage to the places and people who have made him who he is, Perfect Dirt digs into the sometimes painful, sometimes jubilant questions of identity and success. This is a book searching to better understand the world and our place in it, the family we’re born into, and the family we make along the way.

Genres: Nonfiction, Memoir

272 pages, Paperback

First published November 1, 2021

About the author

Keegan Lester is a poet who splits his time between New York City and Morgantown, West Virginia. Mary Ruefle selected his first collection of poetry for the 2016 Slope Editions Book Prize.

His work has appeared in the Boston Review, The Atlas Review, Powder Keg, Boaat Journal, The Journal, Phantom Books, Tinderbox, CutBank, Reality Beach, and Sixth Finch (among others), and he has been featured on NPR, The New School Writing Blog, and ColdFront Mag. His manuscript “We Both Go Together if One Falls Down” was a finalist for the 2016 Georgia Poetry Prize, a finalist for the 2014 coconut books Braddock Prize, and a semi-finalist for the BOAAT Book Prize.

He is co-founder and poetry editor of the journal Souvenir Lit and performs monthly with the New York City Poetry Brothel. He's taught at Stonehill College and was a mentor for the 2016 Adroit Journal Summer High School Mentorship Program. He earned his MFA from Columbia University.

Reviews

[Ashley Holstrom]

“Keegan Lester’s lyrical memoir Perfect Dirt concerns what and where “home” really is.”

Reviewed for Foreword Reviews.

Real talk: I loved the shit out of this beautiful book about Appalachia and home and family and love and poetry. *dreamy sigh*

[Ace Boggess · Rating 4 out of 5]

This memoir from poet Keegan Lester will take the reader on a strange, fun, sometimes troubling ride. One gets to see the growth of the author, along with setbacks, doubts, adventures, and sorrows. The book doesn't follow a traditional memoir style. It bounces about in episodes and vignettes, along with rich meditations on human nature and the importance of place (in Lester's case, his life in California, New York, and West Virginia--three distinct settings). Nonetheless, it flows with the author's distinctive poetic voice. At first, I thought I hadn't read anything I could compare this too, but then realized I have. Recently. Liz Phair's memoir in essays Horror Stories and Mike Doughty's anecdotal memoir I Die Each Time I Hear the Sound both have that same sort of disorienting happenstance to them, each of those books a sort of autobiography of a rock star. That's what Perfect Dirt is, too. Lester is that rock star here, and a vivid character whose life and life-meanings are worth exploring. Take this journey with him. It's worth it.