Title: Men my mother dated and other mostly true tales
Description: As heard on This American Life and NPR's All Things Considered, Brett Leveridge spins mostly true tales of small-town Lotharios and big-city dreams in a voice that is simultaneously hip and homespun--and utterly his own.

There's something universal in these tales of the dating life, peopled with well-intentioned boys next door, two-timing playboys, and traveling roustabouts with a girl in every town. You'll meet the fellow behind Mom's first arrest; get the unexpurgated truth about winking Bob Wills, the King of Western Swing; and learn why a young woman would consent to see The Eddie Cantor Story six times in two weeks--with six different men. Leveridge holds forth on many other topics as well, offering his decidedly contrarian views on major holidays, hilarious skewerings of television ads, and a bittersweet account of the life of a straight man often presumed to be gay. 

Like the best of our current essayists--Roy Blount, Jr., David Sedaris, Sandra Tsing Loh--Leveridge is at once forward-thinking and nostalgic. With his enormously appealing voice and happy knack for taking a commonplace topic and veering off into uncharted territory, Leveridge is, as one scribe put it, "Will Rogers meets Garrison Keillor meets Jack Kerouac."

"Men My Mother Dated" was a finalist for the 2001 Thurber Prize for American Humor.
Subjects: Anecdotes, Biography, Humor, American wit and humor
Places: New York (N.Y.), Oklahoma City (Okla.)
People: Brett Leveridge, Karen Leveridge, Lloyd Leveridge, Jack Kerouac, Bob Wills
Time periods: The first half occurs in the 1940s and '50s; the second, the 1990s.