Skin of My Teeth: A Memoir

It's the summer of 1958, and author Carlos "Carl" Miller has dropped out of college and has moved to New Orleans in search of a job. On a spur-of-the-moment whim, he strolls into the Marine Corps recruiting office on Canal Street. In "Skin of My Teeth," Miller recreates his coming of age during his four-year enlistment, from the culture shock of boot camp to the difficult decision of whether or not to reenlist. The social turbulence of the late 1950s and early 1960s provides the setting for this compelling account. About "Skin of My Teeth," the author says: “This memoir falls under a relatively-new category known as “creative nonfiction,” which presents actual people and events, through dramatization techniques usually used in writing fiction. My goal in writing this book was to recount my four years as a peacetime Marine, 1958-1962. At best, recollection can be subjective, and since more than half a century had passed, at times it was necessary for me to fill in memory gaps and to approximate the sequence of events. I’ve also originated dialogue, which I couldn’t possibly have remembered verbatim. Some characters are composites of more than one actual person, and except for a few notable public figures, I’ve changed the names of all of the characters, out of my respect for the privacy of the actual people."