The Good Hand

A Memoir of Work, Brotherhood and Transformation in an American Boomtown

By: Michael Patrick Flanagan Smith

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Paperback | 3 March 2022

At a Glance

Paperback
464 Pages

Dimensions(cm)
19.9 x 13.0 x 3.0

Paperback

$29.75

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A TIMES AND SUNDAY TIMES BEST BOOK OF 2021

The must-read memoir of 2021.

Michael Patrick Smith grew up in a ramshackle farmhouse where his father beat the walls and threw dinner plates. As a restless young man left unmoored by the crashing economy, Smith cut a path to North Dakota to rent a mattress on a flophouse floor. Sleeping boot to beard with the other rough-edged men looking to earn a cent drilling for oil, Smith wanted the work to burn him clean – of his violent upbringing, his demons, his disjointed, doomed relationships. He did not expect, among these quick-fisted, foul-mouthed hands, to find a community.

The Good Hand is a memoir of danger and exhaustion, of suffering, loneliness and grit, of masculinity and of learning how to reconcile yourself to yourself.

About the Author

Michael Patrick Flanagan Smith is a writer and actor based in Brooklyn. His play about the iconoclast folksinger, Woody Guthrie Dreams, premiered at Theater for the New City in September of 2011. The Good Hand is his first book.

Industry Reviews

‘Thrillingly and wrenchingly funny … like Educated and Hillbilly Elegy’
DAVID LIPSKY

‘After reading The Good Hand you may reassess whether you have ever truly done a hard day’s work in your life … This lyrical and engrossing memoir is an extraordinary tale … Undeniably powerful’
SUNDAY TIMES

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