The Good Hand: A Memoir of Work, Brotherhood and Transformation in an American Boomtown

In The Good Hand, Michael Patrick Smith explores the harsh realities of life in North Dakota's oil fields, where he worked as a roughneck. The book is a powerful memoir of danger, exhaustion, suffering, loneliness, and grit, exploring masculinity and learning to reconcile with oneself. It was named one of the best books of 2021 by The Times and Sunday Times.

Format: Paperback / softback
Length: 464 pages
Publication date: 03 March 2022
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers

A TIMES AND SUNDAY TIMES BEST BOOK OF 2021


‘Thrillingly and wrenchingly funny … like Educated and Hillbilly Elegy, DAVID LIPSKY

After reading The Good Hand, you may reassess whether you have ever truly done a hard day's work in your life. This lyrical and engrossing memoir is an extraordinary tale. Undeniably powerful, the SUNDAY TIMES calls it the must-read memoir of 2021.

Michael Patrick Smith grew up in a ramshackle farmhouse where his father beat the walls and threw dinner plates. As a restless young man left unmoored by the crashing economy, Smith cut a path to North Dakota to rent a mattress on a flophouse floor. Sleeping boot to beard with the other rough-edged men looking to earn a cent drilling for oil, Smith wanted the work to burn him clean – of his violent upbringing, his demons, his disjointed, doomed relationships. He did not expect, among these quick-fisted, foul-mouthed hands, to find a community.

The Good Hand is a memoir of danger and exhaustion, of suffering, loneliness, and grit, of masculinity, and of learning how to reconcile yourself to yourself.

Weight: 324g
Dimension: 128 x 197 x 33 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9780008399481