I Am Sorry to Think I Have Raised a Timid Son

[I recommended this fine and slightly unhinged essay collection this time last year with the review below. We hardly sold any copies, and I don't think many other people did either, but now that I Am Sorry is out in paperback, I think it deserves a second chance. Admirers of Charles d'Ambrosio or J.J. Sullivan, give it a try!]
Is Kent Russell timid? It's hard to say, but he seems terrified he might be. The progeny of brawlers, soldiers, and a charismatically unemployable dad, Russell is drawn to the sorts of men whose fists are swollen and gnarled from hockey fights or self-inflicted cobra bites. This debut essay collection threads his own family story through a series of profiles of tough guys, and I couldn't stop reading it, partly because his reckoning with thwarted masculinity is fascinating but mainly because his sentences are so crazy good. Fans of John Jeremiah Sullivan's Pulphead (like me) should check it out, as should fans of Karen Russell, because Kent is her little brother and his window on their upbringing makes her seemingly fantastic fiction seem realistic all of a sudden.