The More You Hate Me

On June 15, 2007, Staff Sergeant Jeff Smart shot himself in the head in his backyard. The end of his life was eerily similar to that of a character in his favorite war movie, Stanley Kubrick's Full Metal Jacket. This is a son's memoir of rediscovering a film and a father he thought he knew so well. Throughout the book the author confronts the lasting influence of FMJ on his attitudes, his diction, his responses to trauma, and, without fail, his relationship to his father's memory. Ultimately, Andy Smart meets numerous versions of his dad in his nonfiction debut. Some are cinematic, others invented from memory, still others-inchoate and ephemeral-that accompany his daily experiences. The result is not simply the disillusionment of a son but the evolution of a boy into a man-and the often brutal process of defining what a man is. THE MORE YOU HATE ME is the true story of a father who couldn't face the truth of his life story and a son who had no choice.

Andy Smart earned his MFA in Creative Nonfiction from the Solstice Creative Writing Program at Lasell University, where he was a Michael Steinberg Fellow. Andy's essays have appeared in Salamander, Sleet Magazine, and Moon City Review as well the anthologies Show Me All Your Scars (In Fact Books) and Come Shining: Essays and Poems on Writing in a Dark Time (Kelson Books). His poetry has appeared in Lily Poetry Review, The American Journal of Poetry, and elsewhere. Andy was a 2019 Pushcart Prize nominee. His first chapbook of hybrid poetry, Blue Horse Suite, is available from Kattywompus Press. This is his first book. Andy lives in Missouri and online at www.AndySmartWrites.com.