Gritty Memoirs

A Bricklayer’s Tales: A Collection of Short Stories and Memoirs by Gary Troia is a raw, darkly humorous exploration of working-class struggles, self-destruction, and creative frustration. Told through the eyes of Ray Dennis—Troia’s disillusioned alter ego—these gritty, unflinching stories dive into the realities of depression, alcoholism, drug use, and the suffocating monotony of low-paid labour. From bleak construction sites to psychedelic escapes, each tale captures the highs and lows of a man trapped between artistic ambition and brutal wage slavery. Whether facing deportation in...

Author Ron Chepesiuk chronicles the little known history of organized crime in Harlem.

African American organized crime has had as significant an impact on its constituent community as Italian, Jewish, and Irish organized crime has had on theirs. Gangsters are every bit as colorful, intriguing, and powerful as Al Capone and Lucky Luciano, and have a fascinating history in gambling, prostitution, and drug dealing. In the late 1800s, Harlem became a highly fashionable neighborhood.

Dark Is the Night follows a cast of drifters, addicts, and lost souls scraping by on the fringes—moving from bar to bar, bed to bed, one bad decision at a time. Their stories unfold in cheap rooms and darker places, where connection is fleeting and escape is an illusion. This is raw, unsentimental fiction that doesn’t look away.

At first, silence felt holy. Then the music started—and nothing was ever the same. In the gripping second volume of his memoir series, Chaz Holesworth steps out of the wreckage of his Philadelphia childhood and into a new wilderness: adolescence, longing, awakening, and the dangerous freedom of life beyond the rules that once defined him. Raised in a world where faith meant fear and obedience meant survival, Chaz enters his teenage years numb and isolated. Emotions are weakness. Questions are sin. Desire is the enemy. But when first love cracks open the cage, and forbidden music floods in...

In the heat and decay of Ciudad Juárez, a restless outsider searches for meaning and finds a volatile romance with a young street hustler. Desire, addiction, and loneliness blur together as trust erodes and obsession takes hold. Puta is a raw descent into love where nothing is pure—and nothing is safe.

Death, Brooklyn, and the Gritty Side of Grace is a hospice social worker's journey through her internship in the wilds of Brooklyn. It weaves together various patients' stories and the lessons gleaned from them. She meets a man who dies in his family's living room with nowhere for the body to go; a middle-aged man who angrily, tenaciously fights death (and fights his hospice worker); a cancer patient, who is eerily - frighteningly - similar to her. And the unlikely mentor, a Jamaican nurse, whose friendship provides guidance and spiritual insight.

Drawn from personal journals, Tijuana Bebop drags the reader through the neon rot of mid-’90s Tijuana. A fractured symphony of short pieces, it blurs memoir and hallucination—where addiction, sex, and despair collide with surreal flashes of dark poetry. Brutal, hypnotic, and unflinchingly honest, this is a portrait of survival at the ragged edge of humanity.

At six months old, Kenneth is struck by polio, leaving him physically marked and setting the tone for a life shaped by struggle. Abandoned by his mother at the hospital, he is taken in by Pearlie Mae, a blind but fearsome relative who raises him with tough love and relentless discipline. By three, Kenneth experiences haunting visions of celestial beings that feel like a divine or infernal claim on his soul, adding a spiritual weight to his physical trials. Life with Pearlie Mae is harsh; she demands survival skills rather than offering comfort. Kenneth learns early to navigate a world that ...

After nearly forty years of marriage, church ministry, and homeschooling a family of 10, Kendana lost Johnny to a sudden illness. This audio holds the lessons their lives unleashed in a way that feels like The Notebook meets The Shack. Listen to her beautiful, simple words, as Kendana tells of her enduring romance with a farmer boy, their journey through heartbreak, their fierce passion for community, and the surprisingly healing embrace of covenants honored.

Ken Paulson’s memoir could be described as Hunter S. Thompson “lite.” With a good dollop of Jean Shepherd mixed in. As the son of a federal bureaucrat known as an “office fixer,” he quickly learned that putting down roots was tricky when you regularly moved from town to town. Add to that a slightly-neurodivergent, curious and sharp mind, and you could have guessed how this was likely to go. The path to finding yourself is often bumpy. Sometimes, you will find boulders in the middle of the road. In this coming-of-age story, by turns hilarious, heartbreaking and a little horrifying,...

She survived jail. She survived heartbreak. She survived herself. Montana 2 is the unapologetic continuation of a life lived raw and unfiltered. Shakarra Archie picks up where she left off—pregnant behind bars, betrayed by love, and fighting for her future. This isn’t just a story about survival. It’s about rising while everything around you says you should fall. From jail cells and courtroom lies to broken friendships and newfound family, this book takes you deeper into the grit, the grief, and the glory of a woman determined to rewrite her story. With a voice soaked in truth and ...