Sometimes (actually a lot) if felt that the author was wallowing in self pity and being down right cruel to his father, petulant and wanting to exact what he sees as a just punishment for his father's transgressions. However, how would it feel to wake up and find out that your dad had a whole secret life as a cruising gay guy, with hundreds of anonymous partners. Exposing your mom to who knows what kind of diseases, and telling a ton of lies through the years. The mom couldn't get past it and their relationship ended after nearly 40 years. Sad, but the lies trumped the friendship they shared. The story can be a bit uneven and feels like individual bits tied together in a book, just the right length and ending on somewhat of a positive note. This author was apparently working through his feelings - it's a glimpse into a life not a novel.

I really enjoyed this book and also the author's earlier work about his grandparents in northern Nevada. He is able to covey in a very real way both the horrible upset of finding out about his father's actions and the uncertainty he is feeling about what to tell his young sons on the subject. It made me reflect on secrets in my own family, things I never knew about my ancestors until I was much older-things I would have wanted to hear from my father.

I echo what many reviewers have said: I felt the real focal point of this book was with the father, whom we only glimpse in a few letters and through the wounded eyes of his son, the author. As a father myself, I was at times challenged to think about how I would have handled talking to my son about the events that transpire in the book (or similarly difficult topics) but that alone was not compelling enough reason to stay engaged. I do feel that Martin understands and struggles with the fact that he's not handling the situation as effectively as he'd would like, and I respect the vulnerability that he puts on display. Fundamentally, however, it's not a display I cared to participate in.

Firstly, let me start by telling you how entertaining it was to read the author's bio on the back flap and see that he teaches creative writing- yet only has to credits for memoirs. I think it's the general feel of the book- written like someone in a creative writing class, in a word- awful. The kind of book where a person thinking about life in death is then wandering in a cemetery and has an enlightening discovery (actually happens in the book). The best writing to be found in this collection of pages is the excerpts, the emails from the author’s father or magazine articles. I will stay the story as a whole would probably be compelling if the writing wasn’t so terrible and if our author ‘protagonist’ wasn’t such a loathsome whiner.