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The author was three-and-one-half years old when his father died of congestive heart failure at the age of 38. When he was eight, and faced with growing up without a father, Sweeney came up with a plan: he would choose three men who were close to the family, fathers themselves, and he would watch them, learn from them. They were, although they may not have known it, fathers by proxy. Although coming-of-age memoirs are hardly in short supply, this one stands out from the pack by adding a new twist on an old theme. We all base part of ourselves on other people, but few of us do it quite so consciously; Sweeney set out to learn, from these three fathers, how to be a man. We watch him grow up, watch how he fashions himself into a young man, and later a young adult, with the (unknowing) assistance of these three men he has selected to guide him into maturity. This is a remarkable story of family, love, loss, and resilience.

San Jose Mercury News:
In today's world, the word "father" has almost as many interpretations as the Bible. In "Father Figures: Three Wise Men Who Changed a Life," Kevin Sweeney adds a new twist: the surrogate father who does not even realize his crucial role in a boy's life.

Sweeney, who lives in Northern California with his family and is a consultant in environmental protection and human rights, was 3 years old when his father died. Left nearly penniless, his 34-year-old mother set upon the task of raising six children in a close-knit Irish Catholic neighborhood in San Bruno.

In a mostly female-dominated house, 8-year-old Sweeney worried that he would never understand how to be a real man. So one day, he sat down on his bedroom floor and devised a plan for learning how to become a good father.

"I would pick out three men, and they would teach me how. I would not tell them -- they could not know of their role or that they were being observed -- but I would watch them closely, carefully, studying them as fathers.

"I would take every opportunity to sit by them, listen to them, learn from them. They would be the ones I relied on for advice, the ones I could remember that day in the future when I felt the need to say, `I remember when."

One of the most appealing things about this touching memoir -- which originated as an essay in Salon.com -- is how Sweeney avoids so many of the givens of the contemporary memoir. Despite family poverty, there is virtually no self-pity. It is also refreshing to read anything about the Catholic Church that doesn't bash it.

In revealing his journey to fatherhood, Sweeney manages to maintain honesty without wallowing in his own hard times.

Arizona Republic:
Hankies ready? You'll need them during the first chapter of this lovely memoir, but after that it shifts gears and re-creates the childhood of a resilient boy who navigated life without a father. Sweeney was 3 when his dad died in 1962, leaving his mom to raise six children, the oldest only 10, on very little money. But they had a church and a neighborhood (the old-fashioned kind, with lots of kids and chaos), and his mom had a circle of friends she'd grown up with. It was from among her friends' husbands that Kevin "adopted" three dads, men he secretly watched for lessons on how to be a father, a husband, a good man. That's the hook for this story - it's the best Father's Day book we've read in years. But it's also about what childhood was like 40 years ago, when things were expected of even the smallest kids, when siblings looked out for each other, when thrift was a virtue and grief could be postponed in favor of survival. Never maudlin, this book will make you think about what fatherhood really is, and wonder how your own children would do if they were in the Sweeney kids' shoes.

USA Today:
Near the end of Kevin Sweeney's though-provoking Father Figures comes a paragraph that wonderfully sums up his quest to learn what makes up the heart and soul of a father and a man -- and what many believe is one of the best rewards of parenthood.

His young daughter, Julia, is on the family’s front porch as he drives home from work. Her reaction, when she sees him, is priceless: “As I parked the car and walked up the driveway, she ran toward me, her arms wide open. And she said the words I must have said long ago.

“’Daddy, Daddy, Daddy, Daddy.’ It was the most joyous sound I have ever heard – a young child so madly in love. As I scooper her up in my arms, I finally understood that I, too, had loved my daddy that much,” Sweeney writes.

It was a long and sometimes difficult road for Sweeney to travel to this realization. His father died when Sweeney was 31/2, the same age Julia was when she called his name.

For Sweeney and his five brothers and sisters, the road to being a “grown-up” was tough. For the young ones like Sweeney, who barely remembered their father, there was a need to learn about the person their father was while determining who they were as individuals. In an era when the roles of men and women, mothers and fathers, were set in black and white, Sweeney decided that he needed a father – or several – to learn how the be a man.

Father Figures pays homage to a trio of fathers of Sweeney’s childhood friends who – unbeknownst to them – were the primary stand-ins for Sweeney’s dad.

By all accounts, the stand-ins did a good job.

Sweeney has had a successful career as a television reporter, a press secretary to Colorado Sen. Gary Hart, a public relations executive for a hip outdoor clothing company and now as an environmental consultant. He still toys with his dream of being the media guy for the San Francisco Giants and is as engaging and cheerful a person as one is likely to meet.

Though the book is properly billed as a search for his father and father figures, it also is Sweeney’s “memoir lite.” We see his challenges and how his extended family deals with them.

There are some disturbing moments. When the teenage Sweeney begins drinking too much, his normally subdued mother blurts out in hysterics that he should know of his father’s drinking problem. The revelation, which was unexpected to Sweeney, is one of the jolts that shows Sweeney’s road was more difficult that he usually lets on. Eventually, he is steered to the correct path by one of his three surrogate fathers.

The strength of the surrogates in his life gives the book its weight and resonance. The story is valuable to anyone at any age who’s searching for who he is. Sweeney explains that it’s never too late for re-evaluation and life adjustments.

This is a tale of finding a life path, not just searching for a father.

Sweeney made good choices. One surrogate father taught him the value of being there – and waiting for a quiet moment to compliment a child so that he or she hears. Another taught him about respect and generosity – and the value of getting the children out of the house to give your spouse a break. The third taught him about strength and steadiness.

When Sweeney grew up, he was different from these three men. Yet their teachings stuck, proving that their mettle transcended geography and lifestyle.

The book is an outgrowth of an essay about people living in communities where the victims of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks once lived. At times there is an uneven flow to the prose, as if the writing has not moved beyond a Web site essay to a book. Some of the materials seems hasty and does not flow in context.

But the powerful punches and strong concluding chapters outweigh those flaws, and Sweeney finally is at peace with his dad.

Tom Squitieri

Publishers Weekly:
When environmental consultant Sweeney, who was three when his father died of heart failure, turned eight, he chose three men who were friends of his family to serve as stand-ins. At the time, the men didn't know the role Sweeney had picked for them, but they wound up teaching him invaluable lessons over the course of his life. Part memoir, part tribute and part guide for those who have lost a parent, this book (which is based on a Salon.com article Sweeney wrote shortly after September 11) is a thoughtful, touching and realistic look at how children cope with loss. "I did not feel fatherless," Sweeney writes, "not exactly, even though my mother never remarried. I had a strategy for coping. I was a kid with a plan." In spare, unadorned prose studded with touching details, Sweeney relates what it was like to lean on, and learn from, the men around him as he charted his own path to adulthood. The book is a testament of children's strength and resilience in the face of loss.

Chicago Parent:
A Dad memoir for those who didn’t have a father...

The bookstore shelves are packed tightly these days with memoirs of troubled celebrities who have felt the need to share how it is they overcame whatever it is they needed to overcome, and most of these books are annoying. But occasionally there comes along a public disclosure of closure that serves a purpose.

That is the case with Kevin Sweeney’s book. Sweeney is a political operative and activist, most notably an aide in the Clinton administration who at times appeared on “Nightline” and Larry King, which makes him a celebrity even if you have never heard of him. He gives us here the memoir of a boy in a small California town, informed as a toddler that his father has died.

How best to grow up fatherless? Find some other fathers, of course.

He finds three in the neighborhood and adopts them without ever telling them. The three men know him as a kid they see around a lot. They do not know that he is learning from them, and taking comfort from them, precisely as he would have from the man he remembers as “daddy.”

The book takes us through Sweeney’s coming of age, which, like most comings of age, is filled with minor crises and major yearnings. It is a decent enough read on its own, but is better approached as a how-to book, on several levels. An older boy without a father might read it for consolation and the notion that he might find other fathers in his neighborhood if he seeks them out. A single mother might find guidance here, as well, as she wonders each day what is on her fatherless son’s mind.

Or do some of you grown men out there ever wonder about that kid without a father who is always hanging around? Maybe he is doing more than hanging around.
“Laugh at the bad jokes,” Sweeney writes, “and tell some that you remember from fourth grade; ask about their batting stance and whether it changes with two strikes. ... Look them in the eye when you ask how they’re doing.”

Pay attention. It is useful advice for any father in a book that teaches the lesson all fathers should stop each day to remember: “You don’t need to be perfect. You just need to show up.”

Zay N. Smith
June 2003

Bookpage:
Adopted fathers ease a boy’s painful loss...

Moved by reading about the victims of 9/11, many of whom left behind families with young children, writer Kevin Sweeney was prompted to recall is own experience of losing his father when he was three years old. The resulting memoir, Father Figures, is both a nostalgic recollection of growing up during the 1960s in a large Irish-Catholic family and a perceptive exploration of grief’s long-term toll. Comforted by friends, neighbors and teachers and mentored by a stoic older brother, the young Sweeney bravely soldiers on after his father’s death. At the age of eight, he decides to “adopt” three adult men to serve as his role models and guides to manhood. Each man unknowingly lends valuable assistance to the boy on his sometimes painful journey through childhood and adolescence. Poignant without being maudlin, Sweeney’s story beautifully conveys the significance of a father’s role and offers hope that even the most profound of life’s tragedies can be endured and overcome.