Book Review: "After Visiting Friends: A Son's Story" by Michael Hainey

Boy did I enjoy this book.

I'm tempted to leave my review at that, but that wouldn't do much to burnish my reputation as a writer. Using the word "burnish" might help, though.

Michael Hainey, now the deputy editor of GQ magazine, was six when his father died under mysterious circumstances in 1970. Growing up in Chicago, Hainey rarely talked with his mother about his father, or how he died. He ached to learn the details of his father's life, but was discouraged by his mother and other family members from doing so.

He graduated high school, went to college, got a job and finally, in his 30's, decided he needed to discover the truth.

Over the ensuing 10 years he sought out family members, his father's former colleagues, friends, neighbors and anyone else who might have a clue about how his father died. Hainey was stonewalled on a regular basis. He traveled great distances to meet people face-to-face. He used the skills he'd learned as a journalist to keep plugging away.

I really admire Hainey's writing. He uses short, crisp sentences to get across deep, often emotionally charged points. He is selective with his flashbacks, and extremely creative in their use.

"Here they come. People I know. People who know me. Blood, they say. Relatives, all. In big, wide American cars, they drive into my faded-asphalt lot. There's my uncle, Paul, my aunt Nancy; my godmother, Lorraine and her husband, Clarence. There's Uncle Harry, there's Aunt Sue. They are waving to me. I am one boy on two wheels, going in circles, not stopping. And there they go, one after another, to do what you do when a life stops. Coming to close the circle."

For the last 19 months I've been working on a memoir of my own. Currently I'm on the fifth draft, and I've been inspired by After Visiting Friends: A Son's Story. I've been cutting as much fat as I can, and making fewer words do more work.

My story is nowhere near as fascinating as Hainey's, though.

I don't want to give away too much. Hainey's father was a newspaperman in Chicago. Like his colleagues, he lived by a certain code, which called for keeping things close to the vest. Maybe that's just called being a man, I don't know. When he died, the senior Hainey worked the late shift at the Chicago Sun-Times and spent many an early morning drinking alongside his buddies at bars all around the Windy City.

One night he drops dead, at age 35. Years later, his son comes across obituaries written in the Sun-Times and other Chicago papers. He notices that things just don't add up in these life summaries. His mission becomes figuring out just how his father died, who he was with, and why everyone clams up when the topic arises.

I'm gonna leave it at that. Go read this book.