After Visiting Friends: A Son's Story
Michael Hainey had just turned six when his uncle knocked on his family's back door one morning with the tragic news: Bob Hainey, Michael's father, was found alone near his car on Chicago's North Side, dead, of an apparent heart attack. Thirty-five years old, a young assistant copy desk chief at the Chicago Sun-Times, Bob was a bright and shining star in the competitive, hard-living world of newspapers, one that involved booze-soaked nights that bled into dawn. And then suddenly he was gone, leaving behind a young widow, two sons, a fractured family-and questions surrounding the mysterious nature of his death that would obsess Michael throughout adolescence and long into adulthood.



Finally, roughly his father's age when he died, and a seasoned reporter himself, Michael set out to learn what happened that night. Died "after visiting friends," the obituaries said. But the details beyond that were inconsistent. What friends? Where? At the heart of his quest is Michael's all-too-silent, opaque mother, a woman of great courage and tenacity-and a steely determination not to look back. Prodding and cajoling his relatives, and working through a network of his father's buddies who abide by an honor code of silence and secrecy, Michael sees beyond the long-held myths and ultimately reconciles the father he'd imagined with the one he comes to know-and in the journey discovers new truths about his mother.



A stirring portrait of a family and its legacy of secrets, After Visiting Friends is the story of a son who goes in search of the truth and finds not only his father, but a rare window into a world of men and newspapers and fierce loyalties that no longer exists.
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After Visiting Friends: A Son's Story
Michael Hainey had just turned six when his uncle knocked on his family's back door one morning with the tragic news: Bob Hainey, Michael's father, was found alone near his car on Chicago's North Side, dead, of an apparent heart attack. Thirty-five years old, a young assistant copy desk chief at the Chicago Sun-Times, Bob was a bright and shining star in the competitive, hard-living world of newspapers, one that involved booze-soaked nights that bled into dawn. And then suddenly he was gone, leaving behind a young widow, two sons, a fractured family-and questions surrounding the mysterious nature of his death that would obsess Michael throughout adolescence and long into adulthood.



Finally, roughly his father's age when he died, and a seasoned reporter himself, Michael set out to learn what happened that night. Died "after visiting friends," the obituaries said. But the details beyond that were inconsistent. What friends? Where? At the heart of his quest is Michael's all-too-silent, opaque mother, a woman of great courage and tenacity-and a steely determination not to look back. Prodding and cajoling his relatives, and working through a network of his father's buddies who abide by an honor code of silence and secrecy, Michael sees beyond the long-held myths and ultimately reconciles the father he'd imagined with the one he comes to know-and in the journey discovers new truths about his mother.



A stirring portrait of a family and its legacy of secrets, After Visiting Friends is the story of a son who goes in search of the truth and finds not only his father, but a rare window into a world of men and newspapers and fierce loyalties that no longer exists.
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After Visiting Friends: A Son's Story

After Visiting Friends: A Son's Story

by Michael Hainey

Narrated by Dan John Miller

Unabridged — 8 hours, 5 minutes

After Visiting Friends: A Son's Story

After Visiting Friends: A Son's Story

by Michael Hainey

Narrated by Dan John Miller

Unabridged — 8 hours, 5 minutes

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Overview

Michael Hainey had just turned six when his uncle knocked on his family's back door one morning with the tragic news: Bob Hainey, Michael's father, was found alone near his car on Chicago's North Side, dead, of an apparent heart attack. Thirty-five years old, a young assistant copy desk chief at the Chicago Sun-Times, Bob was a bright and shining star in the competitive, hard-living world of newspapers, one that involved booze-soaked nights that bled into dawn. And then suddenly he was gone, leaving behind a young widow, two sons, a fractured family-and questions surrounding the mysterious nature of his death that would obsess Michael throughout adolescence and long into adulthood.



Finally, roughly his father's age when he died, and a seasoned reporter himself, Michael set out to learn what happened that night. Died "after visiting friends," the obituaries said. But the details beyond that were inconsistent. What friends? Where? At the heart of his quest is Michael's all-too-silent, opaque mother, a woman of great courage and tenacity-and a steely determination not to look back. Prodding and cajoling his relatives, and working through a network of his father's buddies who abide by an honor code of silence and secrecy, Michael sees beyond the long-held myths and ultimately reconciles the father he'd imagined with the one he comes to know-and in the journey discovers new truths about his mother.



A stirring portrait of a family and its legacy of secrets, After Visiting Friends is the story of a son who goes in search of the truth and finds not only his father, but a rare window into a world of men and newspapers and fierce loyalties that no longer exists.

Editorial Reviews

Booklist - Vanessa Bush

A beautifully written exploration of family bonds and the secrets that may test them.

David Sheff

Michael Hainey is a great writer. His memoir, After Visiting Friends, is not only gripping and powerful, but it is impeccably written. With a deft hand and a gentle touch, memoir becomes mystery in a world that brings back a bygone era of newspapermen. Hainey takes us through a deeply poignant journey of self-discovery—about how hard it is to sort out who we are and why we are and how our searches can lead to the most unexpected, but most satisfying, discoveries.

The San Francisco Chronicle - James McGrath Morris

[A] searing and unforgettable memoir…Simply put, After Visiting Friends is memoir writing at its bestGut wrenching, riveting and touching.

Nick Flynn

"As much an elegy to a once-upon-a-time era in American newspapers as it is a journey back, into a family and its past, to find truth. With poetic grace and taut investigative storytelling, Michael Hainey's After Visiting Friends shows how to keep going we sometimes need to pause and look back at where and who we come from."

Entertainment Weekly - Rob Brunner

Part what next? detective story, part moving family portrait, and part wistful ode to the whiskey-sloshed mid-century Chicago newspaper world…

Chicago Reader - Michael Miner

[After Visiting Friends is] an elegy to a vanished era of newspapering.

Chicago Sun-Times - Neil Steinberg

A gripping real-life mystery…Michael Hainey has written a heartbreaking book, a page-turner that spurs the reader forward.

the Oprah magazine O

[A] powerfully affecting memoir…

The New York Times - Janet Maslin

After Visiting Friends is full of love for the lost world of nocturnal newspaper work and after-hours boozing.

J. Crew (tumblr)

Hainey is a superb storyteller…Rock-solid reporting mixed with heartfelt vignettes, lovely imagery (Hainey is a published poet) and a certain fairness, grit and honesty toward anything and everyone involved make After Visiting Friends one of the best books we’ve read in recent memory.

Interview - Christopher Bollen

After Visiting Friends is a devastating, heat-seeking, investigative search for the truth...The gorgeousness of Hainey’s prose turns the search into an interior odyssey, to the limits of memory, to expiring minds that can no longer account for their undoing, to the dreams applied to family members who are no longer there.

Shelf Awareness - Ron Hogan

Hainey’s recollection of a childhood defined by his father’s absence is haunting…Hainey’s candor in After Visiting Friends, especially about the self-doubt and frustration that accompany his quest, makes it easy for us to root for him—not just in the search for truth but in the emotional transformation that comes with it.

Vanity Fair - Elissa Schappell

Since the age of six, Michael Hainey had been haunted by the mysterious death of his father, a Chicago newspaperman. In After Visiting Friends he recounts in moving detail the obstacles he faced in uncovering the truth.

Time Out New York

Peering into an uncomfortable past, the journalist traces his family’s history with dramatic, highly readable prose that makes the story feel like a compelling mystery.

USA Today - Craig Wilson

A well-reported story beautifully told. [Michael Hainey’s] father could only be proud.

John Jeremiah Sullivan

"A book whose heartbreak and humor, in the true Irish tradition, can't be untangled. It's a kind of detective story, but the mystery is the past itself."

The Daily Beast - Chris Wallace

Hacking through the tangles of conspiracy and silence, Hainey is as dogged as Marlowe or Spade, but his path is illuminated by a warmth of spirit those sleuths lacked.

Christian Science Monitor - Randy Dotinga

Captivating and poignant

Campus Circle - Angela Matano

[A] terrific memoir…Hainey’s representation of his mother bursts with love and awe…The questions of family, loyalty and truth emerge in After Visiting Friends and will resonate with just about everyone. The surprise—for Hainey and the reader—is recognition of the compassion behind the cover-up."

Gabrielle Hamilton

I inhaled this story. Everything you want and need in a book. I started chapter one with my coffee in the morning and then never made it to work. A beautiful book.

Newsday - Dan Cryer

[After Visiting Friends] moves with the pace of a thriller…it’s both tenderhearted and tough. Michael Hainey is blessed with his father’s writing crops, his mother’s steely resolve and his own, hard-won wisdom.

Peter Orner

Michael Hainey's After Visiting Friends is my sort of book, a Chicago book, a family book of secrets. The powerful mystery at the heart of this story will pull you through to the moving ending, but its Hainey's straightforward and harrowing honesty that will grip you and stay with you. There's great dignity in the way Hainey treats his people, and this lost story.

Elizabeth Gilbert

Is there any more powerful story in the world than a boy looking for his father? Michael Hainey's memoir begins with a mysterious death, proceeds through years of unanswered questions, builds into a relentless investigation, and ends with the stubborn alchemy of a heart transformed. This is a beautiful work of reporting and redemption. Parts of this story will stay with me forever. I finished it in tears."

J.R. Moehringer

"Michael Hainey makes his quest for answers about his father read like a thriller. Then, just when he’s got you turning pages as fast as you can, he stops you with a heartrending detail, or steers you into some drowsy gin mill or fading prairie town for a sidebar of blunt-force power. By the end you’re wrung out, but also uplifted."

The Denver Post - Tucker Shaw

Hainey’s words are clear, swift, colorful, precise, sometimes devastating.

Chicago Magazine - David Bernstein

Hainey is a tremendously talented writer. He has written a thrilling page-turner, in a style that is personally reflective and meticulously reported. His prose is crisp and efficient—poetic.

New York Observer - Rafi Kohan

In a sea of self-discovery memoirs, After Visiting Friends stands out for its level of journalistic inquiry…This doggedness is what brings Mr. Hainey to the truth about his dad.

Chicago Tribune - Rick Kogan

A fascinating, honest, and deeply touching story about a father and son, the price of family secrets, and the redemptive power of truth…Readers will be captivated and moved.

Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

Hainey’s writing is balletic, nimbly avoiding both sentimentality and sensationalism, making grief and absence into powerful and fully felt forces. His short scenes appear like flashes of memory, prose poems of what once was, and he skillfully weaves a narrative that transcends his own and spans generations...Part elegy, part mystery and wholly unforgettable.

Hutchinson Leader - Kay Johnson

A stirring book…

Denver Post

Hainey’s words are clear, swift, colorful, precise, sometimes devastating.”

Chicago Tribune

A fascinating, honest, and deeply touching story about a father and son, the price of family secrets, and the redemptive power of truth…Readers will be captivated and moved.”

San Francisco Chronicle

[A] searing and unforgettable memoir…Simply put, After Visiting Friends is memoir writing at its best…Gut wrenching, riveting and touching.”

From the Publisher

"From family history to Chicago lore, Hainey searches the deepest fissures of memory and finds a hidden and entire 'world of men, of stories, of knowledge' that wasn't there before. Part elegy, part mystery and wholly unforgettable." ---Kirkus Starred Review

From the Publisher - AUDIO COMMENTARY

"From family history to Chicago lore, Hainey searches the deepest fissures of memory and finds a hidden and entire 'world of men, of stories, of knowledge' that wasn't there before. Part elegy, part mystery and wholly unforgettable." —Kirkus Starred Review

Kirkus Reviews

A young reporter goes in search of his long-lost, deceased father. "There's lots of stories you haven't heard," said the narrator's mother when he asked about an unfamiliar family anecdote. But GQ deputy editor Hainey wanted to hear them all. When his father died suddenly one spring day in 1970, he left behind two boys, a wife and a trail of questions that no one wanted to answer for Hainey. For years, the family danced silently around the subject of his father, until the author decided to track down whatever true story was left of him. It was the obituary that set him off: His father allegedly died "after visiting friends," but who were they? Who was with him in his final hours? With medical records and a few shaky, secondhand accounts from his father's former co-workers, a tight-lipped crew of old-time Chicago newspapermen, Hainey hoped to fill the gaps between what he had always been told and what it seemed might actually be true. His personal investigation took him across the country and into strangers' lives, but the most difficult and hard-won part of the journey was his gradual, intimate understanding of his mother and brother. Hainey's writing is balletic, nimbly avoiding both sentimentality and sensationalism, making grief and absence into powerful and fully felt forces. His short scenes appear like flashes of memory, prose poems of what once was, and he skillfully weaves a narrative that transcends his own and spans generations. From family history to Chicago lore, Hainey searches the deepest fissures of memory and finds a hidden and entire "world of men, of stories, of knowledge" that wasn't there before. Part elegy, part mystery and wholly unforgettable.

Product Details

BN ID: 2940170550487
Publisher: Tantor Audio
Publication date: 05/20/2013
Edition description: Unabridged
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