What is Bermuda Shorts?
In clothing, Bermuda Shorts are a kind of casual formal wear – and in this collection of essays, Bermuda Shorts is the perfect metaphor for James J. Patterson’s fundamentally serious but playful literary style. Patterson writes
like the love child of Henry Miller and Mary Karr, with all the contradictions
that implies — a philosopher who thinks best over a glass of fine wine; an ex-Catholic still haunted by the image of the Crucifixion; an irreverent political
satirist whose patriotism flies the flag of another iconoclast, Thomas Paine.

Patterson grew up with a foot planted in each of two worlds — one in
Washington DC, the Capitol of the Empire as he calls it, and one in rural
Ontario, where his Canadian mother insisted the family spend their summers.
His father, one of the wizards of 20th Century newspaper publishing,
introduced him to the city’s wheels of money and power, which he would later navigate as an entrepreneur, starting his first business at 20. But those Canadian summers introduced him to a different world – one where a cedar
strip boat was better than any car, and where the ghosts of those who’d
previously inhabited the family’s island house floated out over the water of
Lovesick Lake. It is those two worlds that blend in Bermuda Shorts, a
collection on what it means to be a man, an artist, an iconoclast, a patriot, and a lover, as the 20th Century rolls over into the 21st.

About the Author
A life long student of history, philosophy and politics, Patterson has managed country bands, delivered newspapers, adapted Sherlock Holmes short stories
for radio plays, and published a highly regarded sports magazine. As a singer-songwriter, Patterson was half of the political satire folk music duo, The Pheromones, one of the first acts to be featured on MTV. With the Pheromones, he toured the US for over fifteen years.

Bermuda Shorts is where nostalgia, art, humor, and perennial skepticism combine in a search for meaning, where philosophy can be found kneeling in front of a haunted crucifix, amongst the vibrating stands in a temple of sports, or in a prolonged tete-a-tete over a bottle of Wild Turkey 101 on a road trip. It’s about life: the whimsy of it, the losses that come with it, and the dutiful journey through it. It’s what James J. Patterson has been looking at; it’s a vision that deserves to be shared.

—Greg Wyshynski