Michael Jay

DOG WATER FREE, A Memoir Michael Jay

2017 indieBRAG Contest Winner for Non Fiction Books Meet Joe Black visits The Wonder Years in the true story of DOG WATER FREE. It chronicles a journey by a boy named Mikee, whose coming-of-age search for emotional truth lands a dumbstruck orphan from the unlikely side of Detroit front and center before icons of culture who have shaped the mindsets of nations: England's Queen Elizabeth II; America's Maestro Leonard Bernstein; the first non-Italian Pontiff in more than 400 years, John Paul II; and a young college co-ed who would become the first woman in history to be elected to lead an Islamic nation, Benazir Bhutto. A family saga at its core, DOG WATER FREE is an uplifting story of discovery that will appeal to fans of The Glass Castle and Angela's Ashes as it pulls back the curtain on adolescent bewilderment while celebrating a remarkable hero in the person of an ordinary mom who is thrust into an extraordinary situation, the likes of which few could imagine. Mikee is eleven when his world turns upside down as his mom shares news from her doctor. She has a year to prepare her family for her death. Her passing will leave the man she loves and the four children she cherishes alone to fend for themselves. "At least you'll always have your dad," she comforts. Still on her mission fifteen months later, her focus heightens when her husband drops dead. With that, Mikee's improbable coming-of-age adventure begins.