Flash back 45 years to a stretch class in the Dancing Theater, the studio space above Handmade & More in New Paltz that former owner Ann Rodman used to make available to the Arts Community’s dance and fitness instructors, under the auspices of Brenda Bufalino, before the second floor became a clothing boutique. It was worth sacrificing the luxury of sleeping in on a Sunday morning to practice those yoga, ballet and Feldenkrais postures for 90 minutes in exchange for the reward of feeling a week’s worth of stress drain away before brunchtime.

In his stunning new memoir The Trouble with Kim: On Transcending Despair and Approaching Joy, the New Paltz writer, musician, and restaurateur Seth David Branitz goes deep into a troubled personal past. It is the story of a wildly dysfunctional New York City family from the 1970s through the end of the century, a family mired in poverty, violence, mental illness, and deepening cycles of futility and struggle. From these antecedents, the youngest child traces his own descent into addiction and inexpressible despair and longing, describing a circuitous route toward — not to — redemption, stability, forgiveness and something like happiness.