The official reading order for Non-Registered Guest: A Memoir in Essays. Fifteen essays, published here first, in the order they belong. It is the same sequence as my reading list on Medium.
Essay 1 of 15Seed Money
A teenager’s name, a jail cell decision, and the underground economy that funded everything that came next
Essay 2 of 15A Stranger in a Familiar Kitchen
Homesick in Ohio, a food critic finds his people in a soul food restaurant in Dayton.
Essay 3 of 15The Armor and The Light
A son reckons with his father’s faith on what would have been his 85th birthday.
Essay 4 of 15The Dinner I Lied Through
A dinner served to the men who came to arrest him, and the cost of the loyalty behind it.
Essay 5 of 15The Enduring Light of Jewel Thais-Williams: How Catch One Illuminated My Path to Freedom
A tribute to the woman who built a space where he could simply exist without explanation.
Essay 6 of 15The Rake of Los Angeles: A Most Scandalous Education
An origin story of charm, duplicity, and the hunger that drove it all.
Essay 7 of 15Non-Registered Guest
Nine months living in Las Vegas casinos, and what it costs to disappear on purpose.
Essay 8 of 15aka CUE ANTHONY
Seven days on the road to witness a wedding. One week from ignition to collapse.
Essay 9 of 15I’m the Old N**gas Now
A drive up I-75, Rick James on the stereo, and the moment inheritance arrives.
Essay 10 of 15The Silence in the Cabin
A truck stop in Missoula. Laundry in the dryer. Grief arriving without invitation, thirty two years later.
Essay 11 of 15Welcome to First Brands Group
The factory floor that gave him his first legitimate ground to stand on.
Essay 12 of 15Thanksgiving Morning
Waking up in tears, five pies baking for no one, and finally asking what exactly he’s been protecting people from.
Essay 13 of 15Life Between the Layovers
The parts of America he knows only because he had somewhere else to be.
Essay 14 of 15The Rake of Los Angeles, Part Two: The Cost of Quiet
Where once the whispers counted his hearts, they now count how few he kept.
Essay 15 of 15Before It Becomes Silence
An uncle he can’t confirm is alive, and the words he says to his daughters while he still can.
Prefer Medium? Read the list there, or see every essay on the Essays page.