Paul Cody graduated from the University of Massachusetts at Boston, and earned an M.F.A. from Cornell University. He has worked as a housepainter, child-care worker, teacher, editor and journalist. His four published novels include The Stolen Child (Baskerville, 1995), Eyes Like Mine (Baskerville, 1996), So Far Gone (Picador USA, 1998) and Shooting the Heart (Viking, 2004). His work has appeared in Harper's, Epoch, Story, the Boston Globe Magazine, and other periodicals. He lives with his wife, the poet and young adult novelist, Elizabeth Holmes, and two sons, in Ithaca, New York. The excerpt here is the first chapter of his memoir, Who He Was.