Later, after many years and much repetition of the same, he died, to the tremendous relief of Queenan, his ma and his sisters. Unsentimental and brutally honest, Queenan’s memoir captures the pathos of growing up in a difficult family and somehow getting beyond it. Joe Queenan’s dad was a self-defeating drunk who beat his kids, lost his jobs, foreswore swearing while raving and ranting and attending church, and who occasionally read good books. After his father’s death, as he was casting about for some way to put a spin on their relationship, Queenan recalls that acting as a stenographer for his father-who in his drunken rages would reel off letters to the editor about various social injustices-was the moment when the thought of making a living as a writer first entered his head. Early in the memoir, Queenan expresses the searingly honest sentiment that becomes the refrain of the book: “I never forgave my father for the way he treated us.” Queenan spent most of his life trying to get away from this father he found refuge in the public library, and for at least a year ran off to a seminary with the intention of joining the priesthood. Queenan’s father was a pugnacious drunk who declaimed passages from great literature and often chatted loudly late at night with God. Queenan closes the chapter on his life with a verbally and physically abusive alcoholic father. ) turns the mirror on himself in this somber and funny memoir about life with father in the projects of Philadelphia. Humorist and pop culture writer Queenan ( Queenan Country
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