I’m Not Here: Strange Relatives, a Stranger Boarding School and the Saving Grace of Art and Love

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Deeply moving and hilarious attempts to make sense of life, faith, friendship, romance, and a dysfunctional family. -Roberto Loiederman, co-author, The Eagle Mutiny

A rollicking follow up to his first book, Paterson Boy, this story collection continues the memoir of Jerry Vis, a city kid from Paterson, New Jersey, as he is packed off to a strict, religious boarding school in the rural South of the 1950s.

Jerry is a fish out of water in a place as alien to him as the moon. The strange boarding school is definitely not to his liking, nor his character, and his college life proves much the same as he strives to carve out a niche in which to flourish. To complicate matters, his father, who had come in and out of focus in his life, dramatically emerges center stage, bringing a confusing mix of God, religion, and alcohol.

Jerry’s humor is both wry and sly. His infectious warmth, easygoing charm, and glimpses of his out-of-place adventures-and misadventures-in a stringent boarding school will sometimes make you laugh out loud and sometimes make your heart ache.

I’m Not Here gives rise to the question: Can art save you? The answer in this uplifting story is that maybe it can. That, and a little love.