Overview

"An award-winning poet's ""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 father's 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 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 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 Forhan's 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). ""Poignant...affecting...Forhan describes his family's 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 book...essential for all parents and children, that is, all people"" (Library Journal, starred review)."

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9781501131318

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Reviews

There's great wisdom here. Passages that startle. --New York Journal of Books Chris Forhan's aching, lyrical memoir excavates both a lost father and a lost era in American history....Forhan writes with grace and intelligence....By bringing in the voices of his siblings and mother, he fleshes out this portrait of a haunted and wounded man, adding heft and color to the fragments of memory....[Forhan's] journey is beautifully and resonantly captured here. --Bookpage A truly emotionally gripping saga. I fell fast under the spell of this new struggling, emotional, and extremely honest friend. My Father Before Me is set apart by the special attributes of the very best books of its kind--characters one seems never to have encountered previously on the page and a narrator who attaches himself to our own memories and, moreover to our hearts and feelings. This belongs on the special shelves we keep for the books we cannot quite forget. --George Hodgman, author of the New York Times bestseller Betttyville Poignant....affecting....It's difficult to lose a parent, let alone write about the loss. Forhan describes his family's healing and acceptance with warmth, humor, and an admirable lack of bitterness. --Kirkus Reviews Chris Forhan has long been one of my favorite poets, and I was thrilled to hear that he'd written a memoir. It is everything I imagined it to be. It's that rare thing--a true memoir, a real re-imagining of a self and an experience. What he has to say here about childhood and adulthood, choosing to live and choosing to die, who we are as children and who we are as parents is timeless and universal in its necessity. The sheer energy of this material is riveting, and the utter intensity of it is its most inescapable quality. --Laura Kasischke, author of the National Book Critics Circle Award-winning Space, In Chains A son's relationship with his father is nearly always fraught, but Chris Forhan's is especially compelling: at 14, abandoned by his father's suicide, Chris was old enough to have been shaped by his father, but still too young to understand how. By the time he's 44--the same age his father reached--Chris begins to reassess, taking a fiercely honest look at himself and his family in the hope that he might change. Piercing and compassionate, My Father Before Me offers a brilliant glimpse into the seemingly impossible but urgently human task of growing out of the selves we've become and into the selves we need to be. --Nick Flynn, author of Another Bullshit Night in Suck City My Father Before Me is an exquisite example of the power of honesty. In this wonderful memoir, Chris Forhan shows that the best way to counter a legacy of mystery and deception is with compassion and truth. --Jeannette Walls, bestselling author of The Glass Castle A wonderfully engrossing book. Essential for all parents and children, that is, all people. --Library Journal STARRED review My Father Before Me is the compelling account of a father's suicide and its devastating after-effects. Chris Forhan sets out to answer the questions that family members inevitably ask in the wake of this tragedy: What made him do it? Was it something I did or said? Was it something I didn't say? Was there anything any of us could have done to save him? From the dramatic act itself to the reverberations felt for decades, Chris Forhan looks without flinching at himself and his father and bravely considers the way he is and is not his father's son. On any single page of this remarkable memoir there are more honest insights than in entire books on the same subject. --Larry Watson, author of Montana 1948 Achingly beautiful...a triumph. --Buffalo News Beautifully written. --Seattle Times Forhan is a poet...and this introspective, precisely written memoir shows it.. In the tradition of Geoffrey Wolff...a powerful family story. --Booklist

There s great wisdom here. Passages that startle. --<i><b>New York Journal of Books</b></i>

There's great wisdom here. Passages that startle. --<i><b>New York Journal of Books</b></i>

My Father Before Me is an exquisite example of the power of honesty. In this wonderful memoir, Chris Forhan shows that the best way to counter a legacy of mystery and deception is with compassion and truth. --Jeannette Walls, bestselling author of The Glass Castle A son's relationship with his father is nearly always fraught, but Chris Forhan's is especially compelling: at 14, abandoned by his father's suicide, Chris was old enough to have been shaped by his father, but still too young to understand how. By the time he's 44--the same age his father reached--Chris begins to reassess, taking a fiercely honest look at himself and his family in the hope that he might change. Piercing and compassionate, My Father Before Me offers a brilliant glimpse into the seemingly impossible but urgently human task of growing out of the selves we've become and into the selves we need to be.--Nick Flynn, author of Another Bullshit Night in Suck City My Father Before Me is the compelling account of a father's suicide and its devastating after-effects. Chris Forhan sets out to answer the questions that family members inevitably ask in the wake of this tragedy: What made him do it? Was it something I did or said? Was it something I didn't say? Was there anything any of us could have done to save him? From the dramatic act itself to the reverberations felt for decades, Chris Forhan looks without flinching at himself and his father and bravely considers the way he is and is not his father's son. On any single page of this remarkable memoir there are more honest insights than in entire books on the same subject. --Larry Watson, author of Montana 1948 A truly emotionally gripping saga. I fell fast under the spell of this new struggling, emotional, and extremely honest friend. My Father Before Me is set apart by the special attributes of the very best books of its kind--characters one seems never to have encountered previously on the page and a narrator who attaches himself to our own memories and, moreover to our hearts and feelings. This belongs on the special shelves we keep for the books we cannot quite forget. --George Hodgman, author of the New York Times bestseller Betttyville A wonderfully engrossing book. Essential for all parents and children, that is, all people. --Library Journal STARRED review Chris Forhan has long been one of my favorite poets, and I was thrilled to hear that he'd written a memoir. It is everything I imagined it to be. It's that rare thing--a true memoir, a real re-imagining of a self and an experience. What he has to say here about childhood and adulthood, choosing to live and choosing to die, who we are as children and who we are as parents is timeless and universal in its necessity. The sheer energy of this material is riveting, and the utter intensity of it is its most inescapable quality. --Laura Kasischke, author of the National Book Critics Circle Award-winning Space, In Chains Chris Forhan's aching, lyrical memoir excavates both a lost father and a lost era in American history....Forhan writes with grace and intelligence....By bringing in the voices of his siblings and mother, he fleshes out this portrait of a haunted and wounded man, adding heft and color to the fragments of memory....[Forhan's] journey is beautifully and resonantly captured here. --Bookpage Poignant....affecting....It's difficult to lose a parent, let alone write about the loss. Forhan describes his family's healing and acceptance with warmth, humor, and an admirable lack of bitterness. --Kirkus Reviews There's great wisdom here. Passages that startle. --New York Journal of Books Achingly beautiful...a triumph. --Buffalo News Beautifully written. --Seattle Times Forhan is a poet...and this introspective, precisely written memoir shows it.. In the tradition of Geoffrey Wolff...a powerful family story. --Booklist

There's great wisdom here. Passages that startle. --New York Journal of Books

Author Information

Chris Forhan is the author of the memoir, My Father Before Me, as well as poetry collections Forgive Us Our Happiness, winner of the Bakeless Prize; The Actual Moon, The Actual Stars, winner of the Samuel French Morse Poetry Prize; and Black Leapt In, chosen by poet Phillis Levin for the Barrow Street Press Book Prize. He was raised in Seattle and earned an MA from the University of New Hampshire and an MFA from the University of Virginia. He has received a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship and two Pushcart prizes. His poetry has been anthologized in The Best American Poetry 2008 and has appeared in Poetry, Ploughshares, New England Review, Parnassus, and other magazines. He teaches at Butler University in Indianapolis, where he lives with his wife and two children.

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