Literary Nonfiction. Women's Studies. "These are the moments I want to tell, to write, the ones that leave me a little raw, that hold love and memory and pain and suffering and survival."--Patricia Ann McNair, from "We Are All Just Stupid People"

Dancing to the jukebox in dark taverns; saying goodbye to her father on the last morning of his life; having sex in the backseat of a car at a drive-in movie; drinking scotch in a nightclub in Havana, Cuba, and coffee in Paris; making up stories on the run; flirting with boys on summer nights on a Chicago beach; finding the perfect sentence; gathering the entirety of her recently deceased brother's things in two plastic garbage bags--these are just a few of the raw and loving moments that Patricia Ann McNair shares in her essays and riffs. This is how things become true, she tells us in a piece about her father s FBI file... with each retelling... AND THESE ARE THE GOOD TIMES are the stories McNair tells and retells. At turns funny and heartbreaking, these brief pieces are full of truth and not just her own, but ours as well.