"A gifted storyteller, Foley will cause you to laugh out loud one page and shed tears the next in this touching mem-fic (part memoir-part not). In the hospital recovering from a stab wound, 15-year-old Foley has far too much time on his hands. He can only stare at the ceiling tiles and peruse the beige painted walls for so long. Foley is forced to confront his past and examine the path that almost led to his death. Chicago’s Southside neighborhoods of the 1960s and 1970s spring to life as Foley intertwines stories about his drunken father’s escapades and his disintegrating family, alongside stories about the strange solitude he seems to enjoy during his 10-day stay in the hospital’s Intensive Care Unit, where he befriends an old man dying of cancer."

Chicago’s Southside neighborhoods of the 1960s and 1970s spring to life as Foley intertwines stories about his drunken father’s escapades and his disintegrating family, alongside stories about the strange solitude he seems to enjoy during his 10-day stay in the hospital’s Intensive Care Unit, where he befriends an old man dying of cancer."