Reading Jeremy Jackson’s I Will Not Leave You Comfortless—a debut memoir that evokes the pain and beauty that mingle within even a happy childhood—is enough to teleport someone to the magical fields and bustling schoolyards of the rural Missouri of Jackson’s eleventh year. Hearing it read aloud by the author as he ventures through a monumental, life-changing year of childhood, will seat you beside Jackson’s hopeful, young soul.

Here, Jackson reads four vignettes from I Will Not Leave You Comfortless. Listen to them in the player below. (Or download the files from the Internet Archive.)

To get you started, here’s a quick synopsis of the readings above:

• The quest for love is often wedded to drastic actions. For Jeremy, finding love meant stepping up to the marriage altar in fourth grade. Discover how he almost tied the knot in “Plans.”

• When his grandmother is hospitalized, as Jackson recalls in “Such Hope,” putting away Christmas ornaments is heavy lifting for his grandfather.

• In “Backward,” Jackson, the reigning Pinewood Derby champion at his school, learns a hard lesson in aerodynamic engineering.

• Nearly all Midwesterners know that in the time it takes to drink a cup of coffee, a brisk fall day can transform into a blizzard. In “Deep: Part II,” the Jackson family slips, tromps, and shivers through an unforgettable snow blind.

Learn more about I Will Not Leave You Comfortless here.
Read an interview with Jeremy Jackson here.