Meet Keith Howard, Manchester resident and community leader, and the author of Unclaimed, But Loud: The Memoir of a Shy and Retiring Boy Who Was Neither. Howard is a New Hampshire native and former director of Hope for New Hampshire Recovery and Liberty House for homeless and struggling veterans in Manchester, and happens to be a veteran and recovered addict himself.
As the founder of Tiny White Box, an avid Substack contributor, and an Ink Link columnist, according to his LinkedIn, his specialties include writing, speaking, and “being vaguely amusing at times.” Howard describes his new book as a mischievous, moving, and darkly funny memoir about growing up strange in small-town Americaโbefore the fall, before the drugs, before the booze, before it all came apart.
For a preview of his memoir, you can read the first two chapters of Unclaimed, But Loud free on Amazon.
Below is a Q&A between Howard and the Ink Link:
Q: Who are you, and why should anyone care?
A: Iโm the boy who got kicked out of kindergarten for pulling down his underwear, and the man who still wonders if that was the last time he told the truth without flinching. Since then, Iโve picked up a lot of labelsโpreacher, principal, punchlineโbut under all of it, Iโm just a kid who asked the wrong questions too loudly and the right ones too late.
Call it curiosity. Call it poor impulse control. Either way, itโs been my compass.
As for why you should care? Iโm not sure you should. But if youโve ever been the weird kid at the family reunion, sitting near the potato salad, hoping someone might choose to sit next to youโthen maybe, just maybe, Iโm your guy.
Q: So what is Unclaimed, But Loud really about?
A: Itโs about growing up strangeโnot โtrauma memoirโ strange, not โchild prodigyโ strange. Just left-of-center in a world obsessed with symmetry. Itโs about trying to earn love by being smart, hilarious, or just plain disruptiveโdepending on what the day demanded. Mostly, itโs a guided tour through the haunted funhouse of memory: warped mirrors, nickel rides, and the occasional honest scream.
Q: Why the title?
A: Unclaimed, But Loud came to me before I had the nerve to write the book. It felt like a truth Iโd been orbiting most of my life, without the language to name it. I was adopted at six months old. No big dramatic origin storyโjust a quiet little handoff, paper signatures, a new name. But even as a kid, I could feel the absence. Not just of genetics, but of any thread. A through-line. I was the new kid in the story, but I hadnโt been there for the beginning, and I wasnโt sure Iโd last through the middle. I didnโt feel chosen. I felt inserted. Like someone had paused the movie and spliced in a different actor.
Growing up, I was always a little out of step. Too loud in quiet rooms, too quiet when everyone wanted noise. I watched life happen around me like it was a dinner party on the other side of the glass. I was thereโbut not in it.
And yetโI made noise. That was my rebellion. That was the one tool I had. I may not have been claimed, but I refused to disappear quietly.
I cracked jokes. Started fires. Wrote manifestos in the margins of math homework. I pulled stunts, made announcements, got thrown out of things. I wanted someoneโanyoneโto look at me and say, youโre not invisible. Even if they were saying it through gritted teeth.
That hunger stayed with me. Through school, through the Army, through the years I disappeared into addiction and drunkenness. I kept trying to earn belonging by being the loudest or the weirdest or the most helpful or the most brokenโwhatever got a reaction.
It took me decades to understand that being unclaimed isnโt the same as being unwanted. And that loud doesnโt always mean heard.
This book is me making peace with that. Itโs not a declaration of victoryโitโs a record of noise.
Noise made in defiance.
Noise made in grief.
Noise made in hope that someone out there would recognize the signal beneath it.
Unclaimed, But Loud isnโt just a title. Itโs the story of a kid who never stopped trying to be seen.
And maybeโif the signal reaches far enoughโitโs also a reminder that being unclaimed doesnโt mean you’re unworthy. It just means youโre still in motion.
Q: Letโs talk childhood. What kind of stories are we in for?
A. ๏ท A drowned Chatty Cathy.
๏ท A dead chickadee.
๏ท A wooden walkie-talkie used to interview Barbara Walters.
๏ท Learning the truth about Hoganโs Heroes and the sacred weight of a promise.
๏ท Getting fired from Orange Julius for laughing too hard.
๏ท Melting down over rust.
๏ท Making my grandfather cry with a single sentence.
๏ท Trying to barter for love with jackassery and slapstick.
You knowโchildhood. The kind that gets rewritten in therapy, but still makes you laugh when no oneโs looking.
Q: This isnโt a typical โI overcameโ story. Why not?
A: Because life didnโt follow the syllabus. The arcโs bent, the climax comes early, and the resolutionโs on backorder.
I didnโt want to write the story where I start broken and end fixed. I wanted to write about the boy who didnโt even know he was brokenโuntil the grown-ups told him so. I found booze and drugs at thirteen, and they workedโuntil they didnโt. Most of this memoir ends before I turn eighteen. The final fifth jumps ahead thirty years and asks:
How do you escape the vehicle you once used to escape everything else?
Q: Your rรฉsumรฉ reads like the backstory of a character who dies in chapter one. Whatโs the thread?
A: Army journalist. Improv director. Alternative school founder. Homeless guy. Recovery worker. Leader of a vet program. One-time believer in God, current believer in trying again tomorrow.
I didnโt set out to have a rรฉsumรฉ like this. I wasnโt chasing titles. I was chasing exits.
Each job, each new startโthose were just doors I ran through when the one behind me caught fire.
This book? Itโs me going back. Trying to figure out what I ran from, and what I might still be running toward.
If thereโs a thread through all of it, itโs this: Iโve always been drawn to the ones on the margins.
The ones who talk too much or not at all. Who ruin Thanksgiving and mean it. Who disappear in plain sight.
Theyโre my people. Because thatโs me.
When I pitched my first alternative school, I didnโt show test scores. I didnโt talk about graduation rates.
Instead, I made a Caesar salad in front of the room.
I held up the romaine: โThese are your typical students.โ
Croutons: โA little crunchy, maybe a little loud.โ
Parmesan: โThe ones who stick to everything but never take up much space.โ
A raw egg: โDelicate, essential, often overlooked.โ
Then I held up a tin of anchovies, and the room groaned.
I waited. Then I said, โYour job is to keep these kids out of the salad. My job is to help them make their own.โ
They clapped, maybe because it meant someone else would take the hard ones.’
But for me, it wasnโt about removing anyone. It was about creating a place where even the anchovies belonged.
Where they didnโt have to change who they were to be part of the mix.
Thatโs how I think about recovery, too.
Not about fixing people. About building something where weโre safe enough to stop pretending.
I didnโt have that kind of place growing up.
I still need it. Some days I find it.
Q: So is this a sad book?
A: God, no. Itโs a funny book about loneliness. A warm book about cold things. A mixtape made by your strangest friendโhalf love letter, half dare.
There are sad parts, sure. But mostly itโs a story about the sweet, surreal ache of being alive and misunderstood.
The laughter matters more because it knows what itโs hiding.
Q: Whoโs it for?
A: ๏ท The kid who wore a cape to school and cried when no one asked why.
๏ท The adult who still isnโt sure which memories are real and which are just well-rehearsed.
๏ท Anyone whoโs ever apologized for being too muchโor not enough.
๏ท People who laughed too loud at funerals.
๏ท People who remember the exact moment they stopped believing in Santa. Or God. Or themselves.
Q: What was hardest to write?
A: Admitting that the grown-ups werenโt villains. They were just tired people doing their best.
And I was a high-maintenance kid with a talent for chaosโand a chip on my shoulder when someone tried to clean up after me.
Q: Why memoir? Why now?
A: Because the boy I used to be deserves more than a punchline. He deserves a witness.
Someone to say: I see you. And you made it further than anyone expected.
This isnโt revenge. Itโs recognition.
Q: So what kind of memoir is this, exactly?
A: One where the first act is funnier than it should be, the second act unravels like a prank gone too far, and the third act doesnโt resolveโit just invites you to stay a little longer.
Itโs not a heroโs journey. Itโs a game of hide-and-seek with the self.
Itโs not a story of being found. Itโs a story of being loud enough not to vanish.
Q: What surprised you in the writing?
A: That I still wanted to protect the little boy I was. That I still believed he might be okay.
How much tenderness I still carry for that boy. How much grief there is in letting him go. And how often the saddest scenes are also the funniestโlike God kept tripping over his own punchlines.
Q: Final pitch. Why does this book matter?
A: Because not every loud story is looking for attention. Some are just trying not to be forgotten.
This is for anyone who grew up on the edge of normal and built a life from noise, scraps, and accidental kindness.
Itโs not a redemption arcโitโs a recognition.
And sometimes, thatโs more than enough.
Unclaimed, But Loud is available for purchase on Amazon and Bookshop.org.