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The Resource My father before me : a memoir, Chris Forhan

My father before me : a memoir, Chris Forhan

Creator
Summary
"The fifth of eight children, Chris Forhan was born into a family of silence. His mother and father often sat in the same room but exchanged no words. He and his siblings learned, without being told, that certain thoughts and feelings were not to be shared. On the evenings his father didn't 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, Forhan's father killed himself in the garage--a new silence. Forty years later, Chris speaks into the quiet his father left behind, digging into his family's past and finding within each generation the same abandonment, loss, and silence in which he was raised. Like Ian Frazier in Family or Philip Roth in American Pastoral, Forhan shows his family as both a part and a product of its time. My Father Before Me is 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 Elvis Costello. Lucidly and unflinchingly, Forhan attempts to understand his father and ultimately himself in order to avoid passing his family's silence on to his children. To separate this silence from the introversion that inspires him as a writer, he courageously confronts it, telling the story that his family will not tell, and piecing together the fragments of the life that his father chose to leave"--Provided by publisher
Language
eng
Work
Publication
Edition
First Scribner hardcover edition.
Extent
1 volume.
Isbn
9781501131264
Instance
Label
My father before me : a memoir
Title
My father before me
Title remainder
a memoir
Statement of responsibility
Chris Forhan
Creator
Subject
Genre
Language
eng
Summary
"The fifth of eight children, Chris Forhan was born into a family of silence. His mother and father often sat in the same room but exchanged no words. He and his siblings learned, without being told, that certain thoughts and feelings were not to be shared. On the evenings his father didn't 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, Forhan's father killed himself in the garage--a new silence. Forty years later, Chris speaks into the quiet his father left behind, digging into his family's past and finding within each generation the same abandonment, loss, and silence in which he was raised. Like Ian Frazier in Family or Philip Roth in American Pastoral, Forhan shows his family as both a part and a product of its time. My Father Before Me is 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 Elvis Costello. Lucidly and unflinchingly, Forhan attempts to understand his father and ultimately himself in order to avoid passing his family's silence on to his children. To separate this silence from the introversion that inspires him as a writer, he courageously confronts it, telling the story that his family will not tell, and piecing together the fragments of the life that his father chose to leave"--Provided by publisher
Summary
A multigenerational portrait of the author's Irish-Catholic American family describes how his numerous siblings and he were raised to hide their feelings, recounts his coming-of-age in the 60s and 70s in the wake of his father's suicide and reflects on his adult efforts to reconcile inherited traits
Tone
Writing style
Award
Library Journal Best Books, 2016
Biography type
autobiography
http://library.link/vocab/ext/novelist/bookUI
10494666
Cataloging source
DLC
http://library.link/vocab/creatorDate
1959-
http://library.link/vocab/creatorName
Forhan, Chris
Dewey number
  • 811/.54
  • B
Index
no index present
Literary form
non fiction
http://library.link/vocab/resourcePreferred
True
http://library.link/vocab/subjectName
  • Forhan, Chris
  • Forhan, Chris
  • Poets, American
  • Fathers and sons
  • Fathers
  • Suicide
  • Irish Americans
  • Catholics
  • Dysfunctional families
  • Silence
Target audience
adult
Label
My father before me : a memoir, Chris Forhan
Instantiates
Publication
Carrier category
volume
Carrier category code
nc
Carrier MARC source
rdacarrier
Content category
text
Content type code
txt
Content type MARC source
rdacontent
Control code
ocn921995094
Edition
First Scribner hardcover edition.
Extent
1 volume.
Isbn
9781501131264
Lccn
2015034743
Media category
unmediated
Media MARC source
rdamedia
Media type code
n
System control number
(OCoLC)921995094
Label
My father before me : a memoir, Chris Forhan
Publication
Carrier category
volume
Carrier category code
nc
Carrier MARC source
rdacarrier
Content category
text
Content type code
txt
Content type MARC source
rdacontent
Control code
ocn921995094
Edition
First Scribner hardcover edition.
Extent
1 volume.
Isbn
9781501131264
Lccn
2015034743
Media category
unmediated
Media MARC source
rdamedia
Media type code
n
System control number
(OCoLC)921995094

Subject

Genre

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    • Central LibraryBorrow it
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      30.271302100000 -97.746016800000
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    • Milwood BranchBorrow it
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