Letters to My FBI Agent: Notes from an Anarchist Under Surveillance
Available for preorder.
Letters to My FBI Agent is a darkly funny memoir told in the form of direct address to the federal agent who can’t stop circling the narrator’s life.
What begins as a taunting correspondence with “Maria Garcia” (the name on the caller ID) becomes something oddly intimate: an investigation into how a person’s humanity can be reduced to a mugshot in a file and how that shapes the way you see yourself.
Moving between prison classrooms, punk shows, family life, political organizing, and the painful task of “existing on the right side of the law,” the narrator tracks a life living under the thumb of law enforcement, all while wrestling with the contradictions of being a respected teacher and a man with a past that others constantly rewrite.
Each letter is a story and a critique, from absurd encounters that turn violent to reflections on masculinity, love, and rage. The book offers a look at what it’s like to be surveilled by the FBI, all while dealing with the pressures of everyday life.
Letters to My FBI Agent asks the question, “When the world insists you are a monster, what does it take to remain fully human?”
Praise
"Dear readers: Slip Letters to My FBI Agent into your sack. Read it on the train or during your break at work. Let Josh Fernandez hold your hand and make you laugh, or perhaps tear up, as we struggle through this fascistic fever dream. The surveillance state may be one giant white van parked across the street, logging all of our hopes and dreams like Josh's fed interlocutor 'María' taking notes on his trip to the supermarket, but fear not: at the core of this unsettling narrative of repression is a resilient, if embattled, humanity that triumphs over MAGA terror."
—Mark Bray, author of Antifa and Unpunctuated Death Threats
About the Author
Josh Fernandez is an antiracist organizer, a father, runner, fighter, English professor, and writer whose stories have appeared in Spin, the Sacramento Bee, the Hard Times, and several alternative newsweeklies. PM Press published his book The Hands That Crafted the Bomb: The Making of a Lifelong Antifascist in 2024. He lives in Sacramento, California.
You May Also Like
The Hands That Crafted the Bomb: The Making of a Lifelong Antifascist
This book is an act of creative insurgency. A gripping, incendiary story about the making of a lifelong antifascist.
Another War Is Possible: Militant Anarchist Experiences in the Antiglobalization Era
A history of twentieth century anarchist mass mobilizations and the movement against capitalist globalization come to life.
A Clean Hell: Anarchy and Abolition in America’s Most Notorious Dungeon
A Clean Hell opens the doors of America’s most secretive prison and lets the reader step into the cell to experience all the horrors the Federal Bureau of Prisons tries to keep hidden underground.
In the Hour of the Wolf: Tales of a Sámi Warrior
A tale of struggle and survival, of solidarity and kinship, of steadfast principles and spiritual awakening.
Cultural Capital Doesn't Pay the Rent: A Queer Memoir
This is a story about loss, economic survival, and three decades of organizing against the interlocking hellscapes of neoliberal capitalism. As she recounts her experiences with chronic underemployment, working several shit-pa
Comrades, Not Friends: The Revolutionary Front, Antifascism, and Class Struggle
The Revolutionary Front spoke the only language fascists understand: violence!
Capitalism: The Age of Unmasked Gods and Naked Kings (Manifesto of the Democratic Civilization, Volume II), Second Edition
The second volume of Öcalan’s five-volume work making the convincing argument that capitalism is not a product of the last four hundred years but a continuation of classical civilization.
When I Was That Age Did Art Exist?
This is a big bundle of essays and written talks, put down over a long number of years: Kelman hopes some of them make you smile.