My Father Before Me

An award-winning poets beautifully written (The Seattle Times) portrait of an American family and his own coming of age in the 1960s and 1970s in the wake of his fathers suicide. This memoir belongs on the special shelves we keep for the books we cannot quite forget (George Hodgman).The fifth of eight children, Chris Forhan was born into a family of secrets. He and his siblings learned, without being told, that certain thoughts and feelings were not to be shared. On the evenings his father didnt come home, the rest of the family would eat dinner without him, his whereabouts unknown, his absence pronounced but unspoken. And on a cold night just before Christmas 1973, long after dinner, the rest of the family asleep, Forhans father killed himself in the carport. Forty years later, Forhan excavates both his lost father and a lost era in American history (Bookpage). At the heart of this fiercely honest (Nick Flynn) investigation is Forhans father, a man whose crisp suits and gelled hair belied a darkness he could not control, a man whose striking dichotomy embodied the ethos of an era. Weaving together the lives of his ancestors, his parents, and his own coming of age in the 60s and 70s, Forhan paints an achingly beautiful (Buffalo News) portrait of a family in the tradition of Geoffrey Wolff (Booklist). PoignantaffectingForhan describes his familys healing and acceptance with warmth, humor, and an admirable lack of bitterness (Kirkus Reviews). A family history, an investigation into a death, and a stirring portrait of an Irish Catholic childhood, all set against a backdrop of America from the Great Depression to the Ramones, My Father Before Me is an exquisite example of the power of honesty (Jeannette Walls), a wonderfully engrossing bookessential for all parents and children, that is, all people (Library Journal, starred review).