In lucid prose George Thomas Clark recalls the challenges of growing up in a family beset by divorce, depression, and alcoholism, and the compensatory joys of playing basketball and other sports.

Though academically promising, Clark loses discipline as his drinking and substance abuse worsen and he drops out of college to write and support himself by menial labor and other unpromising endeavors.

The author vividly portrays experiences from romance to travel to psychiatric care and a belated return to college that eventually leads to a career teaching English as a Second Language for adults. He also continues to write, and Autobiography of George Thomas Clark is his fourteenth book.