A memoir about a charismatic, philandering father who tried to mold his son in his image, the many secrets he hid, the son’s obsessive quest to uncover them, and ultimately, the true meaning of manhood.
Moves back and forth through time as Junod tries to untangle his father’s convoluted past, which turns out to be darker than he ever could have imagined ... Junod’s stemwinder of a title comes from a Led Zeppelin track, and the book, too, moves like a song, drawing you in with its melody before delivering an emotional wallop. Some of the revelations in this book are truly startling.
One of the great literary tributes to a complex paterfamilias in recent memory ... The first half is exhilarating; the second half is a huge bill come due ... Confronts readers with a perplexing question: Can someone be a good father but a bad man?
Tom Junod is a master magazine writer. His prose shows decades of training, close work, craft learning. It’s about as well tended as a body in a spa ... His book is a magnum opus, the culmination of a career, the story that explains all the other stories.
