The Death of My Father the Pope: A Memoir

A man mourning his alcoholic father faces a choice: whether to pay tribute, lay scorn upon him, or pour a drink.

Weaving between preparations for his father’s funeral and memories of life on both sides of the U.S.–Mexico border, Obed Silva chronicles his father’s alcoholism—a lifelong love that ended only at his death at the age of forty-eight, having poisoned himself one Carta Blanca at a time. Addiction respects no borders; the havoc Silva’s father wreaked on his family not only followed ...