Sunday, May 26, 2013

After Visiting Friends: A Son's Story

After Visiting Friends: A Son's Story by Michael Hainey is the story of a man who went on a quest for the truth about his father's death.  Michael Hainey's father died when he was just six years old and after years of no one talking about it and things not adding up, he decided to seek the truth for himself.  He does this by digging up old files, interviewing people who knew his dad, ect.  In the end, he learns more about his father and himself.

The plot summery of this book immediately caught my attention.  My mother passed away when I was young as well and I've always had a lot of unanswered questions about it.  I was intrigued to see what this man would be able to discover and what he would do with those discoveries.

The book itself was a little wordy for my taste (lots of descriptions of places, people and time periods) but overall was well written.  The author takes the reader back and forth in time, and in doing so paints a very clear picture of what life was like when he was growing up. 

I was a bit disappointed in the story after he finds out what really happened to his father.  I wish it revealed more about how he and his immediate family felt after the discovery was made, but perhaps he didn't want to go into detail about that and wanted to keep the emphasis on his journey rather than the results.

Overall, it was a pretty good read.  I won't be adding it to my list of favorites, but it was a well written and interesting book.