January 31, 2011 – No Permanent Scars by Michael Hemery is a nonfiction collection of short essays that reads how creative nonfiction should read: Like fiction. Like nonfiction. Like memoir. Like humor. Like literature. Like life.

It’s about childhood, adulthood, the neighborhood and what it means to be a kid, a parent, a teacher, a human. Michael Hemery illuminates an honest working-class existence, offering both the sober realities of class discrimination and the humor and love of family. Intertwined with serious issues such as suicide, alcoholism, abuse, religion, and immigration, Hemery also endures a painfully slow and often naive coming of age (he once mistook an obvious prostitute for an office supply store employee). This is going to be the best book you’ll read this year.

Now available at Amazon.com

An Interview with Michael Hemery

Excerpt from No Permanent Scars
With Honors
Growing up, I assumed all five-year olds were offered the same academic advice my father gave me each time we discussed school: always do your best, never take the easy way out, follow your passions, and most importantly don’t contract the mumps.

My dad stored his report cards from elementary and middle school in a green, fireproof World War II ammo box that he acquired at a local army supply depot. Each time he’d retrieve tax papers or other important documents from the metal box, I’d ask him to retell the story of his youth. At eleven, he moved from France to Cleveland, and was placed in public school without any sort of intervention or ESL tutor. He was forced to learn the English language and an odd system of measurements entirely on his own. Despite this disadvantage, he outscored many of his American peers, proudly flaunting his language skills in French class when the teacher turned to him for advice.

I’d ask to see the report cards every time he opened the box, so he’d pull out the folded pieces of paper, scattering them on the bed.

“What do you think?” he’d ask me. “Your old man’s not so bad, eh?” He received straight-A’s in every class until his sophomore year. Those report cards were missing from this pile. “I expect the same thing from you. If you’re going to succeed, you have to keep up your grades, no excuses.”

“Tell me again why your other report cards aren’t in here,” I said, wanting to hear the story again. “The ones from tenth, eleventh, and twelfth grades.”

“It was those darn mumps,” he said, sorting the progress reports into a neat stack. “Ever since then I got stupid.”

“So mumps make you stupid?” I asked.

Read the full essay here.

Praise for No Permanent Scars
“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

About the Author
Michael Hemery serves as the nonfiction editor for Hunger Mountain, and earned his MFA from the Vermont College of Fine Arts. He currently resides in Cleveland, Ohio, with his wife Stacie Leatherman and son. About Silenced Press Silenced Press is an independent publisher based in Columbus, Ohio.

Title Information Title: No Permanent Scars
Author: Michael Hemery
Publisher: Silenced Press
Pub Date: 1/31/11
ISBN: 9780979241062