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

In this witty collection of autobiographical essays, Selgin (Drowning Lessons) clambers atop the building blocks of an artistic life to survey its attendant struggles and epiphanies. First, Selgin was a visual artist, a mentally and physically taxing vocation he recalls in "Dead to Rights: Confessions of a Caricaturist." Able to quickly capture his subject's essence in pen-and-ink (it's all in the eyes), Selgin worked for a decade in the bizarre world of birthday and other entertainment party caricaturists, until quitting to write. The title essay, in which he recounts the dog attack that threatened his career and muses on the meaning of left-handedness, beautifully melds the personal and the philosophical. Yet the strongest pieces do not overtly relate to Selgin's artistic pursuits but instead detail his relationship with his family. In "Dagos in Mayberry," he recounts his experiences as the son of Italian immigrants in a small Connecticut town, where his parents' "otherness" both pleased and embarrassed him (his mother's cooking and his father's insistence on riding a rusty bike while wearing black knee socks, respectively). As evidenced by "Restaurant," which brings a childhood game to bear on the author's newfound role as caretaker of his ailing father, Selgin deftly balances humor and tenderness throughout these life-affirming confessions. (Oct.)