Acclaimed writer Ann Leary (The Good House; The Foundling) takes a gleeful leap into her "young senior" years with reflections on her tennis game, the dogs that are her constant companions, and her chronic people-pleasing tendencies in I've Tried Being Nice. In disarmingly frank language that is often laugh-out-loud funny, Leary conveys her struggles as an alcoholic, and the pressure she felt "to be the nicest person everybody ever met," and she celebrates the freedoms that accompany aging and an empty nest.
"States of Mind" is the story of Leary's peripatetic childhood and her efforts at fitting in each time she was the new kid at school again. Here she reveals the contours of family life with a restless father and the joyful distraction books provided whenever they moved. Leary writes with bracing honesty about marriage and the challenges of keeping "the family egg whole" while in the thick of her child-rearing years. "Empty Nest" is an exuberant portrayal of Leary's realization that she and her husband, actor Denis Leary, "no longer had to be good" once their children left home, so they promptly let go of all their rules concerning swearing and watching TV during dinner.
Leary is the author of four novels and a memoir, but these essays see her add emergency medical technician and ballroom dancing to her résumé. She revels in the self-discovery that accompanies the acquisition of new skills, her "desperation to please others" morphing into a confident intention to focus on kindness above all else. --Shahina Piyarali