Publications

Here are some of my books. This page is a work in progress, so it will change. Check back now and then for updates.

Non-Fiction (serious)

Padre: To The Island by Michael Jay Tucker

Padre is a a memoir that spins off the death of my father, and also that of my mother, who pre-deceased him by about a year. While their deaths were sad, their lives were remarkable. They were both fabulous, and very much exemplars of The Greatest Generation. But, also, this book is about me, or rather about people of my age, who now confront the passing of their parents and other older relations. It is about, alas, our own education, as we make the transition to a new role. We are now responsible. We are now the mommies and daddies, and the grandparents. And that is a fundamental rite of passage which is not always comfortable, but which cannot be escaped.Lastly, though, this book is about death—not, though, in a tragic sense. Rather, it is about the art of dying, the business of dying well…And how, sometimes, it is a gift…given, in this case, by my father to me. I am, I trust, appropriately grateful.

And Then They Loved Him: Seward Collins and the Chimera of an American Fascism by Michael Jay Tucker (Dec 8, 2005)

Seward Collins (1899-1952) has the strange dual distinction of being, first, one of the lovers and very nearly the husband of Dorthy Parker, the famed wit of the 1920s and 1930s, and then later a self-described "Fascist." In this book, I examine the man and his life, working from his papers, and I conclude he wasn't "really" a Fascist but rather a dreamy sort of traditionalist -- and, either way, rather a tragic figure.

Non-Fiction (not so serious)

The explosive-cargo books

An ezine was a sort of precursor to the blog—i.e., a short, informal publication that went out via email to anyone who wanted it. And, Explosive-Cargo, a.k.a. "Xcargo," was my ezine. It was sometimes comic, sometimes political, sometimes very personal. It was also relatively successful as ezines went. I had something like 1000 readers, not counting pass-along, by the time I stopped doing it. (An aside, around 2005, I began it again as a blog, which you can see at explosive-cargo.blogspot.com.)

Recently, I've gotten some pressure from former Xcargo readers to republish the columns as e-books. So. that's what I'm doing. It is taking me a while. There are a lot of columns. I've just loaded up my ninth (oy!) collection to Amazon, and there are more to come.

I'd originally listed them all on this page. But, well, I ran out of room. So, they now have a page of their own. Give it (and them) a glance. They are here: Xcargo Books