A Journey to the Middle: How I embraced mediocrity and failed to turn my old vacuum into a rocket ship is a book of essays. The stories range from the true to the absurd.

Many are about coming of age and family, but the author also touches on mental illness, a car chase, a eulogy for someone still living, and bad drawings associated with a parts list for a home-built rocket ship.

The author reflects on painful accounts from his childhood and juxtaposes that with building a craft out of cardboard to take down a ski slope.