It was a crumbling city, like so many others. But in Hartford five gifted young men, who met as high school athletes, promised their lives to the hometown that shaped them even as it was coming apart. They intended to go far. They would, they pledged, bring back college degrees and commit themselves to living and working in Hartford. This is the story of those five men and how they kept, or broke, that promise—told by a writer whose own family history and departure are also part of Hartford’s struggle. It is a story of hope and heartbreak; love, sacrifice, and murder; big-time college football and police brutality; a drug sting that fells a high school coach; and, finally, a reunion of friends who have learned how hard it is to honor the past and live for the future in a place like Hartford. Through it all Michael Downs comes to terms with his own decision to leave his hometown and abandon his ailing grandparents to a city that shows little mercy. His is very much a narrative of our nation of migrants and immigrants, where we must forever ask: What happens to those we leave behind? And how can we make peace with ourselves when we can no longer help the places we once called home?

House of Good Hope: A Promise for a Broken City (River Teeth Literary Nonfiction Prize)

Politics & Social Sciences

Downs, Michael

Social Sciences

Bison Books

Fire sweeps along the wall of a circus tent while inside thousands of people enjoy a Ringling Brothers and Barnum and Bailey matinee. Within minutes, flames consume the canvas and vast sections collapse, killing 168 people and injuring hundreds more. Inspired by the 1944 Hartford Circus Fire, the interconnected stories in Michael Downs's The Greatest Show explore the aftermath of a disaster in a world of clowns, elephants, and childhood fantasies. In the opening story, Ania Liszak, a young Polish housemaid, steals circus tickets from her employer to take her three-year-old son, Teddy, to the matinee. The fire nearly kills both and leaves them scarred in different ways: Teddy's mother enjoys the beautiful strangeness of the scar on her face, but the patches across Teddy's body inspire cruel schoolmates to call him "Lizard Liszak." Over time, his mother transforms her pain into drama, while Teddy, having no memory of that day, seeks ways to return to it. These and other captivating characters appear throughout the book, creating a portrait of an American city and its people over five decades, raising questions about wounds and healing, memory and forgetting, and about the human capacity for kindness -- with all its futility and power -- in the midst of great loss.

The Greatest Show: Stories (Yellow Shoe Fiction)

Literature & Fiction

Short Stories & Anthologies

LSU Press

Selling Yourself

Business & Money

Step Up Pubns

At the zoo, animals in action aren't always what they seem! When you're at the zoo, do you see scary crocodiles? Chimpanzees being silly? Look again! A young narrator makes the rounds of a zoo, pointing out that animals have special reasons for doing what they do. The crocodile is protecting her babies, and the chimpanzees are learning by trying new things. Animals protect, play, bathe, and communicate in different ways. Even the zookeeper isn't just a zookeeper. . .she's the narrator's mom! A picture book that challenges kids to think beyond their first impressions--in a warm and eye-opening read perfect for storytime.

You See a Zoo, I See…

Children's Books

Animals

Charlesbridge

In 2016, after twenty years in St. Louis, the Rams are back in their longtime home. Some call their return to Los Angeles a relocation, but it’s more the restoration of a city landmark. Hollywood’s Team follows the Rams of the 1950s. They were glamorous, glitzy, and most of all, they were exciting. Like the city itself, the Rams were comprised of both big stars and everyday workhorses like John Hock, father of the author―a quiet, humble, and stout offensive guard. They were the first major professional sports team west of the Mississippi River, the first to integrate, even before Jackie Robinson, the first team to reach a million fans, and the first team with a TV contract. The Rams of the 1950s were, in so many ways, the first modern sports franchise. Their roster is a who’s who of the NFL Hall Fame. Names such as quarterback Norm The Dutchman” Van Brocklin, wide receiver Elroy Crazy Legs” Hirsch, Bob Waterfield, Tom Fears, defensive back Dick Night Train” Lane, and linebacker Les Richter. Other notables from the era include a wunderkind public relations man named Pete Rozelle who would go on to become the boy commissioner of the NFL at age thirty-three. Head coach Sid Gillman was an architect of the modern passing game. Owner Dan Reeves was a genius in business, but troubled by alcohol. Heck, even the iconic comedian Bob Hope was a partial owner of the Rams at the time. The Rams were Hollywood’s team. This is their story.

Hollywood's Team: The Story of the 1950s Los Angeles Rams and Pro Football's Golden Age

Biographies & Memoirs

Hock, Jim

Historical

Rare Bird Books

Father on the Line

From the time he was old enough to remember, Jim Hock was told stories of his dad's glory days playing football in LA. A member of the 1950s LA Rams, John Hock, Jim's dad, was a member of Hollywood's Team, a football team that redefined what a sports team looked like, sounded like, and acted like, all while revolutionizing the sport of football. But Jim didn't know John the football star, he just knew the sweet, funny guy he called Dad. In a warm and aching memoir of childhood, good dad's, and what it is to realize that your parents had a life and successes before you came along.

Sports & Outdoors

Biographies

In 2016, after twenty years in St. Louis, the Rams are back in their longtime home. Some call their return to Los Angeles a relocation, but it’s more the restoration of a city landmark. Hollywood’s Team follows the Rams of the 1950s. They were glamorous, glitzy, and most of all, they were exciting. Like the city itself, the Rams were comprised of both big stars and everyday workhorses like John Hock, father of the author―a quiet, humble, and stout offensive guard. They were the first major professional sports team west of the Mississippi River, the first to integrate, even before Jackie Robinson, the first team to reach a million fans, and the first team with a TV contract. The Rams of the 1950s were, in so many ways, the first modern sports franchise. Their roster is a who’s who of the NFL Hall Fame. Names such as quarterback Norm The Dutchman” Van Brocklin, wide receiver Elroy Crazy Legs” Hirsch, Bob Waterfield, Tom Fears, defensive back Dick Night Train” Lane, and linebacker Les Richter. Other notables from the era include a wunderkind public relations man named Pete Rozelle who would go on to become the boy commissioner of the NFL at age thirty-three. Head coach Sid Gillman was an architect of the modern passing game. Owner Dan Reeves was a genius in business, but troubled by alcohol. Heck, even the iconic comedian Bob Hope was a partial owner of the Rams at the time. The Rams were Hollywood’s team. This is their story.

Rare Bird Books, A Vireo Book

In 1844, Horace Wells, a Connecticut dentist, encountered nitrous oxide, or laughing gas—then an entertainment for performers in carnival-like theatrical acts—and began administering the gas as the first true anesthetic. His discovery would change the world, reshaping medicine and humanity’s relationship with pain. But that discovery would also thrust Wells into scandals that threatened his reputation, his family, and his sanity—hardships and triumphs that resonate in today’s struggles with what hurts us and what we take to stop the hurt. In this novel, Michael Downs mines the gaps in the historical record and imagines the motivations and mysteries behind Wells’s morbid fascination with pain, as well as the price he and his wife, Elizabeth, paid—first through his obsession, then his addiction. The book is a love story, but also a story of what love can’t redeem; of narcotic dreams and waking insanity; of humbug and miracle; of pain’s destruction and what pains can never be eased. Following Wells throughout New England and across the ocean to Paris, the novel immerses the reader in the nineteenth century, conveying through rich physical description and telling dialogue the tragic life of a dentist who gave everything to rid the world of suffering.

The Strange and True Tale of Horace Wells, Surgeon Dentist: A Novel

Literary

Acre Books

Underground Theory

Žižek, Slavoj

Finkelstein, Norman

McGowan, Todd

Zupančič, Alenka

MCLUHAN, MARSHALL

Liu, Catherine

Power, Nina

McKerracher, David

Cutrone, Chris

Philosophy

Independently published

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Books by Downs, Michael