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All the Wrong Places: A Life Lost and Found
The prize-winning author of Fire Season returns with the heartrending story of his troubled years of flight.
In his debut Fire Season, Philip Connors recounted with lyricism, wisdom, and grace his decade as a fire lookout high above remote New Mexico. Now he tells the story of what made solitude on the mountain so attractive: the years he spent reeling in the wake of a family tragedy.
At the age of twenty-three, Connors was a young man on the make. He'd left behind the Minnesota pig farm on which he'd grown up and the brother with whom he'd never been especially close. He had a magazine job lined up in New York City and a future unfolding exactly as he’d hoped. Then one phone call out of the blue changed everything. All the Wrong Places is a searingly honest account of the aftermath of his brother's shocking death, exploring both the pathos and the unlikely humor of a life unmoored by loss.
Beginning with the otherworldly beauty of a hot-air-balloon ride over the skies of Albuquerque and ending in the wilderness of the American borderlands, this is the story of a man paying tribute to the dead by unconsciously willing himself into all the wrong places, whether at the copy desk of the Wall Street Journal, the gritty streets of Bed-Stuy in the 1990s, or the smoking rubble of the World Trade Center. With ruthless clarity and a keen sense of the absurd, Connors slowly unmasks the truth about his brother and himself, to devastating effect. Like Cheryl Strayed's Wild, this is a powerful look back at wayward years—and a redemptive story about finding one's rightful home in the world.
In his debut Fire Season, Philip Connors recounted with lyricism, wisdom, and grace his decade as a fire lookout high above remote New Mexico. Now he tells the story of what made solitude on the mountain so attractive: the years he spent reeling in the wake of a family tragedy.
At the age of twenty-three, Connors was a young man on the make. He'd left behind the Minnesota pig farm on which he'd grown up and the brother with whom he'd never been especially close. He had a magazine job lined up in New York City and a future unfolding exactly as he’d hoped. Then one phone call out of the blue changed everything. All the Wrong Places is a searingly honest account of the aftermath of his brother's shocking death, exploring both the pathos and the unlikely humor of a life unmoored by loss.
Beginning with the otherworldly beauty of a hot-air-balloon ride over the skies of Albuquerque and ending in the wilderness of the American borderlands, this is the story of a man paying tribute to the dead by unconsciously willing himself into all the wrong places, whether at the copy desk of the Wall Street Journal, the gritty streets of Bed-Stuy in the 1990s, or the smoking rubble of the World Trade Center. With ruthless clarity and a keen sense of the absurd, Connors slowly unmasks the truth about his brother and himself, to devastating effect. Like Cheryl Strayed's Wild, this is a powerful look back at wayward years—and a redemptive story about finding one's rightful home in the world.
256 pages, Hardcover
First published February 16, 2015
56 people are currently reading
1776 people want to read
About the author
Philip Connors
13Ìýbooks98ÌýfollowersPhilip Connors is the author of Fire Season, which won the Banff Mountain Book Competition Grand Prize, the National Outdoor Book Award, the Sigurd F. Olson Nature Writing Award, and the Reading the West Book Award. Connors's writing has also appeared in Harper's, n+1, the Paris Review, and elsewhere. He lives in New Mexico.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 100 reviews
November 4, 2016
Search to Make Sense of Brother's Suicide Makes for Moving Memoir
A poignant memoir of the author's search for any semblance of sense in his younger brother's suicide. If there's a better description of life after the loss of a family member to suicide, of the grief that grips you, the gnawing need to understand why, the replays over and over of the Lasts (conversation, visit, facial expression, shared moments of youth), of the empty place left in the soul that one tries to, but can not, fill, I'm fairly certain I cannot bear to read it.
Mr. Connors, in graceful prose, provides a vivid and moving account of his inability to move past his brother's suicide: until he followed each last trace of the moments and days leading up to the gunshot wound to the temple, until he spoke to others who had seen or talked to his brother during those final hours, and tracked down photos from the police and read an autopsy report. In short, the author had to satisfy himself that he could and would never know why his brother took his life. When he came to accept this, he found an inner peace because he was finally freed of the constant thoughts, guilt and feelings of emptiness within, left by the faults resulting from the suicide that turned his world on its head.
The things Connors did, the places he worked (all the wrong places) and the people he met, all on his journey to self-revelation, acceptance and inner peace, add up to make this moving memoir a richly rewarding read.
A poignant memoir of the author's search for any semblance of sense in his younger brother's suicide. If there's a better description of life after the loss of a family member to suicide, of the grief that grips you, the gnawing need to understand why, the replays over and over of the Lasts (conversation, visit, facial expression, shared moments of youth), of the empty place left in the soul that one tries to, but can not, fill, I'm fairly certain I cannot bear to read it.
Mr. Connors, in graceful prose, provides a vivid and moving account of his inability to move past his brother's suicide: until he followed each last trace of the moments and days leading up to the gunshot wound to the temple, until he spoke to others who had seen or talked to his brother during those final hours, and tracked down photos from the police and read an autopsy report. In short, the author had to satisfy himself that he could and would never know why his brother took his life. When he came to accept this, he found an inner peace because he was finally freed of the constant thoughts, guilt and feelings of emptiness within, left by the faults resulting from the suicide that turned his world on its head.
The things Connors did, the places he worked (all the wrong places) and the people he met, all on his journey to self-revelation, acceptance and inner peace, add up to make this moving memoir a richly rewarding read.
July 11, 2022
July 10, 1130am ~~ Review asap. Have to sort out my thoughts about this one.
645pm ~~ This book is a very intimate, gruesomely detailed reporting of what happened in the author's life after his younger brother committed suicide.
It is not easy to read, and it made me very uncomfortable more than once. After Fire Season, I wanted to understand the author better, which is why I read this in the first place, but as always you must be careful what you wish for. I cannot unlearn any of what I read, and while I must say it was brave of Connors to share, there were many parts of the book that were quite disturbing.
I hope writing the book helped him put the ghosts to rest. I suppose that was the idea in the first place. And as someone who also turns to a journal when there are issues to work out, I understand the liberating feelings of getting words down on paper, of sensing answers rise up from within, of sorting Life out in the best way for your Self.
Naturally there were points I did not completely comprehend. I have never known anyone who chose to give back their life, so I have no idea how I would react to such a situation. But to me, right from the beginning, it seemed that the author almost threw away his own life because of his brother's choice with his. Connors became obsessed with learning why, obsessed with suicide (he kept a notebook of quotes about it and read anything that mentioned it), and was a little afraid he might do the same someday, since at the funeral he was told that everyone expected him to be the brother who chose that way out of life, not Dan.
He allowed himself to close up, to shut off from everything, seeming to want to punish himself for what he felt was his biggest mistake: not stopping his brother from shooting himself. If he had called back when he said he would, surely he could have saved him. Right?
Probably not.
What struck me again in this book, the same as in Fire Season, is the author's self-absorption. He looked first and foremost at how Dan's action affected himself: what he could have, would have, should have done to be the hero and save the day. Then he fixated on learning why it had happened. This all shaped his own outlook on life, and destroyed whatever happiness he might have had at one time.
Again, I have never been through such an experience so I should not judge the man, but it was very hard for me not to think 'It was Dan's decision and it had nothing to do with you or anyone else. He could not face life for whatever reason and chose not to look for help, but that does not make you or anyone else responsible. Get over it."
Heartless, I know. I am not sure why I did not have more sympathy for the author and his quest. I was certainly not as touched by this book as I expected to be. I guess I just felt it was better to leave things alone, to quit torturing himself about it all. But each of us have to decide for ourselves how far we need to go to get beyond the pain of any kind of trauma. Connors had to go to the very end of the road, and I still wonder if he will ever be able to let it all go.
645pm ~~ This book is a very intimate, gruesomely detailed reporting of what happened in the author's life after his younger brother committed suicide.
It is not easy to read, and it made me very uncomfortable more than once. After Fire Season, I wanted to understand the author better, which is why I read this in the first place, but as always you must be careful what you wish for. I cannot unlearn any of what I read, and while I must say it was brave of Connors to share, there were many parts of the book that were quite disturbing.
I hope writing the book helped him put the ghosts to rest. I suppose that was the idea in the first place. And as someone who also turns to a journal when there are issues to work out, I understand the liberating feelings of getting words down on paper, of sensing answers rise up from within, of sorting Life out in the best way for your Self.
Naturally there were points I did not completely comprehend. I have never known anyone who chose to give back their life, so I have no idea how I would react to such a situation. But to me, right from the beginning, it seemed that the author almost threw away his own life because of his brother's choice with his. Connors became obsessed with learning why, obsessed with suicide (he kept a notebook of quotes about it and read anything that mentioned it), and was a little afraid he might do the same someday, since at the funeral he was told that everyone expected him to be the brother who chose that way out of life, not Dan.
He allowed himself to close up, to shut off from everything, seeming to want to punish himself for what he felt was his biggest mistake: not stopping his brother from shooting himself. If he had called back when he said he would, surely he could have saved him. Right?
Probably not.
What struck me again in this book, the same as in Fire Season, is the author's self-absorption. He looked first and foremost at how Dan's action affected himself: what he could have, would have, should have done to be the hero and save the day. Then he fixated on learning why it had happened. This all shaped his own outlook on life, and destroyed whatever happiness he might have had at one time.
Again, I have never been through such an experience so I should not judge the man, but it was very hard for me not to think 'It was Dan's decision and it had nothing to do with you or anyone else. He could not face life for whatever reason and chose not to look for help, but that does not make you or anyone else responsible. Get over it."
Heartless, I know. I am not sure why I did not have more sympathy for the author and his quest. I was certainly not as touched by this book as I expected to be. I guess I just felt it was better to leave things alone, to quit torturing himself about it all. But each of us have to decide for ourselves how far we need to go to get beyond the pain of any kind of trauma. Connors had to go to the very end of the road, and I still wonder if he will ever be able to let it all go.
April 23, 2015
Philip Connors can write - HE CAN WRITE.
Glad I won this Advance Reading Copy from Å·±¦ÓéÀÖ.com. AND thank you.
This book is an unforgettable memoir. He holds nothing back and you wonder why in the world he let it all out. Friends, that's why this is truly a top notch story to read. He tells his story without holding back. The subtitle of the book ' A LIFE LOST AND FOUND' is the biggest hint about his memoir.
He had to find out more about why his brother committed suicide. So, the story begins.
Glad I won this Advance Reading Copy from Å·±¦ÓéÀÖ.com. AND thank you.
This book is an unforgettable memoir. He holds nothing back and you wonder why in the world he let it all out. Friends, that's why this is truly a top notch story to read. He tells his story without holding back. The subtitle of the book ' A LIFE LOST AND FOUND' is the biggest hint about his memoir.
He had to find out more about why his brother committed suicide. So, the story begins.
July 8, 2016
ALL THE WRONG PLACES is a hero's journey and the story of the emergence of one of the best of the West's new writers.
I had the pleasure of meeting Phil Connors at an Association for the Study of Literature and Environment writer's conference where he was a speaker. Dave Foreman was there too and the three of us had lunch along with my wife and publisher at Torrey House Press, Kirsten Allen. Kirsten ended up sitting with three men who had lost their brothers by their brother's own hand. It was a moving experience for me, one I still feel and am grateful for.
As coincidence would have it, the copy of ALL THE WRONG PLACES Phil generously sent me showed up in my mailbox on the five year anniversary of my brother's death. I started reading it around noon and finished it a minute before midnight. I had in my hand a story I related to on many levels, of course, but also one that told the background story of how a sensitive, hard working, acutely honest and master observer came to be an award winning writer.
Phil was on a path he might not have been cut out for when his world was side swiped by the news of his younger brother's suicide. It was a suicide he feels he might have prevented. We older brothers know this, know we could have done something, know what it would have been, know it even though we are often told there is nothing we could have done. The challenge is to figure how to live with the realization of this existential truth. Phil ended up leaving New York City for a fire tower in the Gila, where his title FIRE SEASON emerged followed by this work. We are all the richer for it.
What is most personal is the most universal. In this exquisitely honest portrayal of a life closely examined and found wanting the rest of us can shed a light on our own dark interior.
Man, Phil, nice work.
-Mark
I had the pleasure of meeting Phil Connors at an Association for the Study of Literature and Environment writer's conference where he was a speaker. Dave Foreman was there too and the three of us had lunch along with my wife and publisher at Torrey House Press, Kirsten Allen. Kirsten ended up sitting with three men who had lost their brothers by their brother's own hand. It was a moving experience for me, one I still feel and am grateful for.
As coincidence would have it, the copy of ALL THE WRONG PLACES Phil generously sent me showed up in my mailbox on the five year anniversary of my brother's death. I started reading it around noon and finished it a minute before midnight. I had in my hand a story I related to on many levels, of course, but also one that told the background story of how a sensitive, hard working, acutely honest and master observer came to be an award winning writer.
Phil was on a path he might not have been cut out for when his world was side swiped by the news of his younger brother's suicide. It was a suicide he feels he might have prevented. We older brothers know this, know we could have done something, know what it would have been, know it even though we are often told there is nothing we could have done. The challenge is to figure how to live with the realization of this existential truth. Phil ended up leaving New York City for a fire tower in the Gila, where his title FIRE SEASON emerged followed by this work. We are all the richer for it.
What is most personal is the most universal. In this exquisitely honest portrayal of a life closely examined and found wanting the rest of us can shed a light on our own dark interior.
Man, Phil, nice work.
-Mark
April 21, 2015
A bold, creative work of art. Phillip Connors exposes his psychological
makeup, his interior territory as he lives and works at the Wall Street Journal in New York. From lonely sojourns to the Southwest to intimate (and not-so intimate) connections, he poetically reveals his Shadow, his search for meaningful answers and his new direction. Of course, in his debut memoir, Fire Season, which I read last year, he begins the telling of his new life spent in much solitude working as a fire lookout in a remote forest range in New Mexico. Brave work! Inside and Outside.
makeup, his interior territory as he lives and works at the Wall Street Journal in New York. From lonely sojourns to the Southwest to intimate (and not-so intimate) connections, he poetically reveals his Shadow, his search for meaningful answers and his new direction. Of course, in his debut memoir, Fire Season, which I read last year, he begins the telling of his new life spent in much solitude working as a fire lookout in a remote forest range in New Mexico. Brave work! Inside and Outside.
April 15, 2020
Phillip Connors take us through a difficult time in his life and often questioning his judgement after his younger brother's suicide.
The tragic loss of a loved one can either be detrimental to our own self confidence or can push us to be better and understanding of our own faults.
Phillip Connors open his heart and soul in All The Wrong Places.
The tragic loss of a loved one can either be detrimental to our own self confidence or can push us to be better and understanding of our own faults.
Phillip Connors open his heart and soul in All The Wrong Places.
March 25, 2023
Read on Kindle. Well written . Not a happy story. Coming to terms with brother suicide is a major part.
April 8, 2015
I was hooked from the first page. It was a book about his brother's suicide, but it was so much more. I powered through it in two days while the other books I am reading languished on the shelf. I have not devoured a book like this for a while. Beautifully written. Philip is breathtakingly honest about his life. His honesty is a gift to me, the reader.
I love his clarity about how he started his career as a paper pusher and tried his best to work his way up, but was still dissatisfied.
I love the repetition of chance encounters with people where he says at the end "I never saw them again."
I love that he does not use any punctuation or quotation marks for his dialogue. As a writer myself, I am jealous he can get away with that. It also makes the dialogue blend into the story more which adds to its power.
I love that he has the guts to leave his job and move to New Mexico.
Of course I am fascinated with the phone sex part, but my favorite part of the book is at the end where he finally does the research to find out what happened to his brother that might have caused him to commit suicide. Along with identifying with his pain, I felt a sense of deep satisfaction as he picks up clues from the different people in his brother Dan's life.
He was able to write exactly what I wanted to know as though he could guess my next question.
I did not want the story to end.
I love his clarity about how he started his career as a paper pusher and tried his best to work his way up, but was still dissatisfied.
I love the repetition of chance encounters with people where he says at the end "I never saw them again."
I love that he does not use any punctuation or quotation marks for his dialogue. As a writer myself, I am jealous he can get away with that. It also makes the dialogue blend into the story more which adds to its power.
I love that he has the guts to leave his job and move to New Mexico.
Of course I am fascinated with the phone sex part, but my favorite part of the book is at the end where he finally does the research to find out what happened to his brother that might have caused him to commit suicide. Along with identifying with his pain, I felt a sense of deep satisfaction as he picks up clues from the different people in his brother Dan's life.
He was able to write exactly what I wanted to know as though he could guess my next question.
I did not want the story to end.
January 13, 2015
Note: I received an advanced reading copy of this book through Å·±¦ÓéÀÖ First Reads.
This is a difficult book to read, which is interesting because Philip Connors has a style that's easy to sink into. Within the first few sentences, it was as though I was overhearing Connors talking with an old friend a few tables away from mine. Maybe I wasn't intended to hear the conversation, but there it was. And it's all there: his brother's suicide, climbing a journalistic ladder at The Wall Street Journal, discovering the wonders of phone sex, unspoken history, etc.
Connors writes with quiet sincerity, attempting to discover why his brother committed suicide, if there was something he could have done differently, and what happens next? He presents the facts as he recalls them. There's not a hint of embellishment. It's messy, and maybe even sometimes disjointed, but it never loses honesty.
This is a difficult book to read, which is interesting because Philip Connors has a style that's easy to sink into. Within the first few sentences, it was as though I was overhearing Connors talking with an old friend a few tables away from mine. Maybe I wasn't intended to hear the conversation, but there it was. And it's all there: his brother's suicide, climbing a journalistic ladder at The Wall Street Journal, discovering the wonders of phone sex, unspoken history, etc.
Connors writes with quiet sincerity, attempting to discover why his brother committed suicide, if there was something he could have done differently, and what happens next? He presents the facts as he recalls them. There's not a hint of embellishment. It's messy, and maybe even sometimes disjointed, but it never loses honesty.
March 17, 2015
I was very impressed with Connors' first published memoir - Fire Season and when I saw he had published a second I didn't hesitate to read it.
What impresses me most about his writing is his willingness to portray parts of his personality and in some cases, his actions or lack of action, trusting the reader to continue to read and to integrate all the pieces of his story into a whole. This was true of Fire Season as well as this second book.
Moving from a Minnesota boyhood, almost fairy tale in his remembering; to a career as a journalist in New York City; and then to the mountain forests of New Mexico, Connors writes with an engaging reflective voice. In each of his adult locales, Connors struggles to come to terms with a family tragedy. One of my best reads so far this year.
April 8, 2015
Having experienced a suicide in the family, I engaged the book on an emotional level, nodding many times as he described his restless, ambivalent, and searching behaviors after his brother's death. That need to endlessly replay the scene and create your own narrative of how and what happened, as though that accomplishes something, sounded familiar. A suicide in the family will reverberate for years to come in a way other losses don't. Definitely finished the book feeling as though I'd read a book written by a comrade, a veteran of the same war.
April 16, 2015
Connors writes of a girlfriend recently returned from a stay at a mental health facility, "She shone with a glittering confusion, beautiful and fragile as a Fabergé egg." Having lived through a similar situation, I was struck with his analogy.
He mainly deals with his brother's suicide and how it haunts him to this day. Again, knowing another brother this happens to, makes Connor's writing so much more vivid and truthful.
This is the book I wish I had been given to read when my husband went to Menninger's.
He mainly deals with his brother's suicide and how it haunts him to this day. Again, knowing another brother this happens to, makes Connor's writing so much more vivid and truthful.
This is the book I wish I had been given to read when my husband went to Menninger's.
August 7, 2015
This is a sharp, emotional memoir that I read two sittings. I didn’t want to put it down. Connors is a near-perfect memoirist, using concise, beautifully-crafted words that can convey entire spectrums of emotions and experiences in just a few short sentences. His honesty is raw and endearing. His need for human connection is palpable. There is a dark humor to his writing that he deploys expertly throughout. I enjoyed this a lot.
April 8, 2015
"The pain of it never does fade entirely, never will-no doubt it disfigured me in ways that will endure for what remains of my life- but at last I found a place to put it where it wouldn't eat me alive."
February 5, 2016
Probably the best book I've ever read about surviving sibling suicide. This memoir is beautifully structured and written. It makes me want to go back and read his first book, Fire Season, all over again.
March 2, 2015
Excellent memoir. I found bits of myself as I lost myself in his stories.
April 4, 2021
Philip Connors writes so honestly about his life after the loss of his younger brother and how he struggles to understand the choices both he and his brother made in the days leading up to his death. He wants to know: why did his brother choose to end his own life? What could he have done to stop it? Could he have done anything to stop it if he had known, or had he already decided? It becomes the only thing in his life that he has, this haunting, guilt-stricken fixation, which he recognizes with such revealing clarity.Ìý
This book broke me and tore me down. Long, winding chapters detail Connors life in his early twenties into his thirties trying to figure out everything about himself. He included so many stories that peered so deeply and honestly into his thoughts and reactions. I am really impressed with his ability to tell a story such as this one. This made me laugh at times and it made me cry. Grief is a strange and terrible monster. Connors describes how families, particularly his, that are affected by the suicides of loved ones are forever and irrevocably changed by the loss. A fascinating and gripping journey as he struggles through "all of the wrong places" in order to get his life to make sense again in a meaningful way. As someone whose biggest fear is death- I hate the idea of anyone's life being over, or anyone being in pain- this memoir struck a chord with me. I am glad he approached all of this so openly and so sincerely, not holding back in the slightest.Ìý
I am looking forward to reading his other memoir, Fire Season, as it seems to be about how solitude and nature helped him during his time as a fire lookout in New Mexico.Ìý
This book broke me and tore me down. Long, winding chapters detail Connors life in his early twenties into his thirties trying to figure out everything about himself. He included so many stories that peered so deeply and honestly into his thoughts and reactions. I am really impressed with his ability to tell a story such as this one. This made me laugh at times and it made me cry. Grief is a strange and terrible monster. Connors describes how families, particularly his, that are affected by the suicides of loved ones are forever and irrevocably changed by the loss. A fascinating and gripping journey as he struggles through "all of the wrong places" in order to get his life to make sense again in a meaningful way. As someone whose biggest fear is death- I hate the idea of anyone's life being over, or anyone being in pain- this memoir struck a chord with me. I am glad he approached all of this so openly and so sincerely, not holding back in the slightest.Ìý
I am looking forward to reading his other memoir, Fire Season, as it seems to be about how solitude and nature helped him during his time as a fire lookout in New Mexico.Ìý
March 18, 2015
How does one respond to a brother's suicide? What impact does the brother's final, desperate act have on his various family members, friends, ex-fiancee's and others? Can one ever make peace with it?
This book tells Philip Connors story of his relationship with his younger brother and his obsession with his brother's death by suicide that occupied nearly 20 years of his life. Although Connors continues to live... the suicide is nearly always in his thoughts and eventually a motivator of his actions.
I found the book fascinating for for the way the suicide both freed the author to do things he might otherwise have avoided and imprisoned him in his obsession. Perhaps the fact that someone indicated to the author that he had thought the author might commit suicide, but never the brother who actually did it, was a factor in the the intensity of the author's experience.
My one criticism of the book would be that the author tended to give too much credit for his moving beyond the suicide to new information he received about an awful childhood experience his brother had born as a secret. Although this may have been a critical factor to the suicide, I suspect the author's maturation and other processing of the event were also significant factors in his being ready to move to another focus in his life.
This book tells Philip Connors story of his relationship with his younger brother and his obsession with his brother's death by suicide that occupied nearly 20 years of his life. Although Connors continues to live... the suicide is nearly always in his thoughts and eventually a motivator of his actions.
I found the book fascinating for for the way the suicide both freed the author to do things he might otherwise have avoided and imprisoned him in his obsession. Perhaps the fact that someone indicated to the author that he had thought the author might commit suicide, but never the brother who actually did it, was a factor in the the intensity of the author's experience.
My one criticism of the book would be that the author tended to give too much credit for his moving beyond the suicide to new information he received about an awful childhood experience his brother had born as a secret. Although this may have been a critical factor to the suicide, I suspect the author's maturation and other processing of the event were also significant factors in his being ready to move to another focus in his life.
March 26, 2015
I loved his first book about the reflections of a fire lookout in the Gila. This book doesn't disappoint either and it explains how he got to be in the Gila. It's the author's personal and introspective journey into finding himself. It's filled with wit and irony and has much soul. It's not meant as a confessional but it's intimate. You feel like you know Philip Connors but perhaps that's the old one. The new one in the Gila we don't know much about and perhaps that's good as living in the now, you need your secrets. And there are secrets in this book that the author unlocks. It's set against his youth in New York City as a struggling journalist. We have as major life events the suicide of his brother in Albuquerque, a mental breakdown of a friend, and 9/11. It will make you reconsider your life too. Are you living a lie?
January 17, 2016
All the Wrong Places by Philip Connors is a free Å·±¦ÓéÀÖ FirstReads advance reader copy of a paperback book that I began reading in mid-February. I had requested this book due to being interested in his previous book, Fire Season, and thought, "Hey, why not devote part of my study hall hours to reading recreationally?"
Connors' autobiographical tone is of the kind of guy who wanders amid the things that happen to him; it's the kind of description that you can coast along with, but not really lose yourself in, even when it involves bouts of mania, journeys through phone sex, and the tragic death of his brother.
Connors' autobiographical tone is of the kind of guy who wanders amid the things that happen to him; it's the kind of description that you can coast along with, but not really lose yourself in, even when it involves bouts of mania, journeys through phone sex, and the tragic death of his brother.
Want to read
February 25, 2015I heard Philip Connors on Fresh Air yesterday. Twice, actually--coming home from day classes and then coming home from night class. What a revelation. Probably the best author interview I've heard in some time--the insight into human nature and his own personal tragedy moved me to immediately buy the book.
Read
August 11, 2016So, this book probably isn't going to be for anyone (cough... phone sex), but as a recounting of Connors' brother's suicide and its aftermath, and all the ways that one person's death can affect someone else for a long time (a sort of suicide half-life, if that makes any sense), the book is wonderful.
I suspect I'll be thinking about this book for a long time.
I suspect I'll be thinking about this book for a long time.
March 13, 2015
Amazing writer! His clarity is flawless. The prose is remarkable!
Contains personal details (of a sexual nature) that some may find offensive. I'm only including this in my review for my "friends". It didn't diminish or even effect the quality of this book, in my opinion. Wow, to the last page!
Contains personal details (of a sexual nature) that some may find offensive. I'm only including this in my review for my "friends". It didn't diminish or even effect the quality of this book, in my opinion. Wow, to the last page!
March 2, 2015
Normally I hate long chapters, but I still really liked this memoir. I felt like he was very honest and open and I related to his feelings over the loss of his brother.
December 9, 2023
(3.5 stars/rounding up)
All the Wrong Places is Philip Connors's memoir of his early twenties in NYC and his struggles to understand/come to terms with his younger brother having taken his own life. Though he says he and his brother "weren't close" as young adults, they were "an insesparable pair" in early childhood on their family's farm in Minnesota: "coconspirators unmindful of language, at home in the out of doors, amid the smells of sloughs and mud and skunks and manure." Connors says he then "became a reader, asthmatic and sensitive, squeamish around farm animals, more comfortable baking cookies than baling hay," so when the family had to give up the farm when Connors was twelve, it relieved him of the expectation of following in their dad's footsteps. Of his path and his brother Dan's path, he says this: "No one was surprised when I went away to college and he chose the path of blue-collar work."
Connors writes about having just arrived in New York City for an internship at the Nation, then getting a call from his dad saying that Dan was dead. The internship is postponed; Connors goes to Minnesota then back to Montana. He eventually lands back in NYC, where he gets a job at the Wall Street Journal (though he disagrees with the paper's politics) and a room in an apartment in Bed-Stuy (which seems better than cat-sitting four cats in Hell's Kitchen). I really liked all of Connors's WSJ stories and NYC stories—his story about writing , his story about seeing Al Sharpton speak after the cops who murdered Amadou Diallo were acquitted, his stories about an amateur phone sex line he used to call. I like descriptive passages like this, when he's talking about how he was seeing a girl who lived in Virginia and would take the train to visit her: "I soon became familiar with the long train ride to Charlottesville, the halting, slowly accelerating departure, newspapers and books shielding faces, drinks in the jolly bar car. Strange intimacies with strangers, the proffered stories and the swiveled glances. The endless telephone poles and the scalloped pattern of their lines, rising and falling, rising and falling out the windows. The filthy ditches and the piles of gravel and the scrap-metal heaps. Long lengths of gleaming metal pipes stacked in pyramid form. Featureless glass office towers, low-slung factories abandoned to rot. Brick bungalows and back yard swings. The huge neon sign on the Delaware River Bridge, part boast, part lament: TRENTON MAKES—THE WORLD TAKES."
And oh: Connors writes about 9/11, about making his way from Queens to the WSJ offices the day it happened. Through everything, there is the memory of Dan, and the questions Connors has about his death—why he did it, what his last moments were like, if Dan would still be alive if Connors had returned his phone call that one time a few months prior. Connors keeps a commonplace book with quotes about suicide; he thinks of Dan as having "revealed the secret passageway off to the side of the life we all led." He eventually travels to New Mexico, where Dan lived and died, to see his autopsy report and photos, and to see the police photos of the scene of his death, and to talk to his ex-fiancée and her parents (her dad was Dan's boss and friend, and was the person who found Dan's body). And then he ends up in New Mexico himself, leaving NYC to take a gig as a fire lookout and falling in love with the forest/mountain landscape.
I'd been meaning to read this book since I borrowed it from my mom several Christmases ago and am glad I finally got around to it. I particularly liked the NYC portions of it, but I also appreciate the way Connors writes with delicacy about his brother's story and with frankness about his own.
All the Wrong Places is Philip Connors's memoir of his early twenties in NYC and his struggles to understand/come to terms with his younger brother having taken his own life. Though he says he and his brother "weren't close" as young adults, they were "an insesparable pair" in early childhood on their family's farm in Minnesota: "coconspirators unmindful of language, at home in the out of doors, amid the smells of sloughs and mud and skunks and manure." Connors says he then "became a reader, asthmatic and sensitive, squeamish around farm animals, more comfortable baking cookies than baling hay," so when the family had to give up the farm when Connors was twelve, it relieved him of the expectation of following in their dad's footsteps. Of his path and his brother Dan's path, he says this: "No one was surprised when I went away to college and he chose the path of blue-collar work."
Connors writes about having just arrived in New York City for an internship at the Nation, then getting a call from his dad saying that Dan was dead. The internship is postponed; Connors goes to Minnesota then back to Montana. He eventually lands back in NYC, where he gets a job at the Wall Street Journal (though he disagrees with the paper's politics) and a room in an apartment in Bed-Stuy (which seems better than cat-sitting four cats in Hell's Kitchen). I really liked all of Connors's WSJ stories and NYC stories—his story about writing , his story about seeing Al Sharpton speak after the cops who murdered Amadou Diallo were acquitted, his stories about an amateur phone sex line he used to call. I like descriptive passages like this, when he's talking about how he was seeing a girl who lived in Virginia and would take the train to visit her: "I soon became familiar with the long train ride to Charlottesville, the halting, slowly accelerating departure, newspapers and books shielding faces, drinks in the jolly bar car. Strange intimacies with strangers, the proffered stories and the swiveled glances. The endless telephone poles and the scalloped pattern of their lines, rising and falling, rising and falling out the windows. The filthy ditches and the piles of gravel and the scrap-metal heaps. Long lengths of gleaming metal pipes stacked in pyramid form. Featureless glass office towers, low-slung factories abandoned to rot. Brick bungalows and back yard swings. The huge neon sign on the Delaware River Bridge, part boast, part lament: TRENTON MAKES—THE WORLD TAKES."
And oh: Connors writes about 9/11, about making his way from Queens to the WSJ offices the day it happened. Through everything, there is the memory of Dan, and the questions Connors has about his death—why he did it, what his last moments were like, if Dan would still be alive if Connors had returned his phone call that one time a few months prior. Connors keeps a commonplace book with quotes about suicide; he thinks of Dan as having "revealed the secret passageway off to the side of the life we all led." He eventually travels to New Mexico, where Dan lived and died, to see his autopsy report and photos, and to see the police photos of the scene of his death, and to talk to his ex-fiancée and her parents (her dad was Dan's boss and friend, and was the person who found Dan's body). And then he ends up in New Mexico himself, leaving NYC to take a gig as a fire lookout and falling in love with the forest/mountain landscape.
I'd been meaning to read this book since I borrowed it from my mom several Christmases ago and am glad I finally got around to it. I particularly liked the NYC portions of it, but I also appreciate the way Connors writes with delicacy about his brother's story and with frankness about his own.
March 22, 2017
In young adult literature, we have the coming of age novel, where a young person goes through a significant experience and comes out the other end ready to face life. Philip Connors’s All the Wrong Places is like a coming of age novel, although it is non-fiction—a memoir—and the main character, Connors, is in his twenties when the story starts and progresses over sixteen years before he comes to accept and learn from the tragic happening that impacted his life and his family. Beautifully written and vividly told, Connors’s story is a life lesson. We experience what he was and did: a man who is so heartbroken and baffled that his life goes off-center and he questions existence and the nature of life. Moving along swiftly—which is amazing for a book that is so deep and intense—we follow Connors as he tries to make sense of what has happened to him. The book sat on my shelf for months before I decided to pick it up, fearing it might be too dark or too philosophical. And yet it flowed like a fine-tuned novel, and I felt like a better person, having read it. During the time period his story takes place, something took place that provided a mini-revelation to Connors. I say “mini� simply because he had a lot more soul-searching to do before his lesson was finished. That event was 9/11, something that had major impact on everyone in America—more so, though, perhaps, for those who were right there. Connors worked at the time for the Wall Street Journal, whose offices were right across the street from the Twin Towers. His description of that horrible event is one of the most harrowing and most vivid telling of 9/11 that I’ve ever read. He devotes just a few pages to this, but the horror of that day is expertly rendered, and it is clear that 9/11 is a pivotal time, not only for Connors but for all of us. All the Wrong Places is a touching examination of grief and the human experience.
January 15, 2023
I share so much with Connors. Could've written a similar book, but haven't. So grateful he has, and also glad for him, that he did. I lost my baby brother- also a seemingly happy guy, with everything going his way, and well beloved by all he encountered - in '97, so quite some time ago. Went down a dark hole, with radical cells bringing on an aggressive form of cancer, all of which I've never really recovered from. Grief has been my "Before & After" world, as has been horror, and PTSD, and questioning - undying questioning, and of course "if only"s and regret. I thank Connors for sharing his world with us, with seeming total honesty
His own sense of being an outsider everywhere, including early on in Bed-Stuy where he was lucky to get an apartment interesting. Outsider and loner... yet reaching out to many along the way.
Also dug the parts about the WSJ and its legacy and ongoing corruption of American minds by those who stand in a position of influence... I would love to see Connnors folder of clippings he labeled "Full Blown Insanity on he WSJ Editorial Page" - all certainly and reliably NOT "the surest means of comforting the afflicted and afflicting the comfortable" which is what good honest journalism should strive to do!
The later part of his life in NM manning the Fire Tower that MJ left to him interesting as was the whole part about this LIVE Calls - apart from having been privy to that sort of thing watching "Paris, Texas", I had no idea!
Thanks again, Philip Connors
His own sense of being an outsider everywhere, including early on in Bed-Stuy where he was lucky to get an apartment interesting. Outsider and loner... yet reaching out to many along the way.
Also dug the parts about the WSJ and its legacy and ongoing corruption of American minds by those who stand in a position of influence... I would love to see Connnors folder of clippings he labeled "Full Blown Insanity on he WSJ Editorial Page" - all certainly and reliably NOT "the surest means of comforting the afflicted and afflicting the comfortable" which is what good honest journalism should strive to do!
The later part of his life in NM manning the Fire Tower that MJ left to him interesting as was the whole part about this LIVE Calls - apart from having been privy to that sort of thing watching "Paris, Texas", I had no idea!
Thanks again, Philip Connors
August 20, 2019
The novel All the Wrong Places: A Life Lost and Found by Phillip Connors is an amazingly put together autobiography about a man's solitude for a decade in a remote area. It's about a man who gives up his life on a farm at the young age of 23 purely for the sense that life must be greater than he had known. The main character goes through small misadventures on his way to his destination. It also explores issues between him and his brother. I personally read this book simply because I was bored and it was sitting at my friend's house but I was not disappointed. I recommend this book for those who don't want to be incredibly focused on one thing and instead prefer to be guided by a leisurely read. I have thoroughly enjoyed this book and hope others who pick up this same work of passion enjoy this book just as I have.
April 28, 2020
I mistook this for a 'finding solace in nature' type of memoir, when in fact it was 'finding solace by offloading my trauma on women who I can manipulate into sleeping with me' memoir (note: these are stories from his 20's, so....what else does a 20-something year old man know how to do I guess). I learned a lot of new words, though - impressive vocabulary on this guy. I never got bored, as the stories shifted quickly and you were never in one scene for long. 2-stars because this character of himself was really unlikable for me, so it made it hard to 'be on his side' in even the smallest way, which I think is rather necessary for personal non-fiction.
December 5, 2024
Rounded up to 4.5. This reminded me of reading Augusten Burroughs, who I had to lay off for awhile because he was so intense. This was an emotional ride from start to finish. I read a reviewer that said his brother's suicide was all about him, and I agree, but how could it not be? He and his brother weren't that close and I could relate to this. My older sister and I were very close for a very short period of time. And now we're not. She's still alive, but is not interested in being any closer than we are. Such is life. I've got his other book on deck and I hope it's as readable as this one is.
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