Reviews

So We Go:

  • "A moving tribute to an extraordinary, ordinary man, a devoted father who loved fiercely and was loved with the same fierceness by all those around him. By turns, elegiac, unflinching, and dignified, Hemery has written a tribute to his father that creates a vivid portrait of a man no one wanted to let go. I imagine that as a young man, Daniel Hemery must have listened to those Beatle lyrics and taken them dead seriously. “And in the end, the love you take is equal to the love you make.” If not, they could just as well have been writing about him."

-Robin Hemley, author of Nola: A Memoir of Faith, Art, and Madness

  • “Michael Hemery's new book So We Go: The Day My Father Died is a new kind of wisdom literature, the kind whose poignance and relevance will never die out. Somehow he manages to take his own grief and suffering and turn it into an astonishing elegy of love, courage, and hope. And his father lives on in these pages in a way that transforms his death into a timeless and unforgettable story.”

- Robert Vivian, author of The Least Cricket Of Evening and Mystery My Country


No Permanent Scars:

  • "The funny, thought-provoking and sometimes painful short essays in Michael Hemery’s book are individual gems; together they comprise a poignant and comic portrait of a boy becoming a man, finding his way within family and community and grappling with sexuality, spirituality, and love – not to mention a considerable video game addiction. This collection soars."

-Laurie Alberts, author of Fault Line

  • “Michael Hemery’s No Permanent Scars employs exactly those qualities most lacking in contemporary writing – of whatever genre. Not only are these personal essays honest and emotionally available, they come out of a blue-collar background that we don’t expect to foster this kind of unguarded revelation. No Permanent Scars embodies a working-class empathy that popular culture seems unable to fathom. With urgent and compelling prose, Hemery explores a world that is too often hidden in plain sight, and does it fearlessly.”

-Sue William Silverman, author of Fearless Confessions: A Writer’s Guide to Memoir

  • What an exciting new writer Mike Hemery is! His prose is sharp and funny, yet his vision is compassionate and deeply penetrates to the core of who we are: flawed and fabulous human beings. This is a book to carry around with you, and read and reread not just at the beach or the bedroom—but everywhere."

-Samrat Upadhyay, author of Buddha's Orphans.

  • “If you've ever considered naming your unborn child Magneto, thought your scraped knee was a period, been to a garlic-cleaning party, loved the song "Rock Me, Amadeus," or especially if you haven't, then you must read Michael Hemery's marvelous No Permanent Scars. Ranging from poignant to hilarious to heartbreaking, Hemery's essays recount his child's self growing in a zig zag pattern into adolescence and adulthood, triumphing over the "misfires of memory" in his quest to solve the mysteries he first unearthed when he was young.”

-Philip Graham, author of The Moon, Come to Earth: Dispatches from Lisbon