I Am Sorry To Think I Have Raised A Timid Son

Kent Russell is one of the most excitingly gifted young non-fiction writers to have appeared in recent memory - John Jeremiah Sullivan, author of Pulphead

For those of us who’ve been missing Hunter Thompson lately, good news: I Am Sorry to Think I Have Raised a Timid Son is as close as we’re going to get to his second coming when it comes to full-on gonzo passionate observation and self-loathing transmuted into social criticism. Its larger subject is perhaps the most toxic and entertaining of all of the can-do malevolences abroad in our land-American masculinity-but its more intimate and wrenching subject is that of one father and son, similarly self-sabotaging, masters of hurtful apathy, talkers who reject the talking cure, each shipwrecked with their shame. If you’re looking for what’s funny and smart and fierce and devoted to the shrinking hope that we can all even still perhaps cultivate virtue, stop right here. - Jim Shepard

an exhilarating collection of essays grapples with modern American masculinity … Russell writes in an endearing voice that can be at once wryly observant and objectively fair. - Financial Times

What really makes Russell stand apart is the quality of his sentences, which are luxurious, clever .. The style is efficient and confident, mixing registers with authority. - Daily Telegraph