Kevin Sweeney’s FATHER FIGURES is a poignant, occasionally riotous, and ultimately hopeful story of a boy with a detailed plan for life without a father.
Fatherless since the age of three, Kevin began to wonder if he could ever be a good father. How could he know what to do if he didn’t have a role model of his own? Always a kid with a plan, at the age of eight he picked three men from his community and stalked them through his childhood. A secret sleuth, he watched how they treated their kids and their wives, how they worked, how they carried themselves. He hung on their every word. Unexpectedly, and over time, he was no longer watching the story unfold; he was part of it. The three men helped pull Kevin from his tumultuous youth to the safety of adulthood.
FATHER FIGURES traces a young life marked by sorrow, yet still filled with innocent wonders, naïve recklessness and a lot of fun. Kevin learns to hit curveballs, has run-ins with cops, and barely survives the roiling masculinity of a Catholic boys school. He relies on the strength and creativity of his nearly-penniless mother, who somehow manages to make two pieces of salami seem like a Sunday feast. He wonders why it is that his family never speaks of his father—not for seventeen years. And he searches for clues about the life of the man he can’t remember.
This “compact, understated but precisely detailed memoir” (Contra Costa Times) is a fast read and a brilliant debut—a coming of age story that doesn’t fit the usual mold. With its deft use of humor, the book can also be a helpful guide for children and others in need of mentors, for families struggling with the loss of a parent, or for those who lost parents long ago when so much about family loss was often left unsaid.
Sweeney’s story offers proof that a tragic event need not condemn a child to a sad childhood, that children might be resilient—even creative—in their grief, and that mentors can make profound differences in the lives of young people.
FATHER FIGURES grew out of a Salon.com essay Kevin wrote in the wake of 9/11. Thinking about children who would grow up fatherless as a result of the terrorist attacks, he wrote about his strategy. The essay, and the hardcover book that followed, generated an extraordinary amount of feedback, most of it from people who saw traces of themselves in the little boy with a plan, the men who served as role models, or the 34 year-old mother who raised six young children on her own.
