After Visiting Friends (Michael Hainey)

In this memoir, the author describes his search for the truth about his father, who died when he was only six. Although the people and events are drawn clearly, there seemed to be missed opportunities to bring the story to life. Pages and pages were devoted to detailing the interviews with people who had little to add to the story, but there was not enough about two core people: the author and his mother. We see both of them from the outside, from a distance, and never get to know either of them well. Though the author describes how the loss of his father colored his childhood, there was nothing much about his current life; he mentions a girlfriend in passing, but we are never told about this relationship or about anything in his professional life aside from pursuing the investigation. This made the story seem distant and passionless.