First published 1997
James Carroll examines his relationship with his father Joe, who abandoned his calling to the priesthood to climb the FBI ranks under Hoover and eventually founded the Defense Intelligence Agency at the Pentagon. Carroll grew up privileged as a general's son, dating a vice president's daughter and meeting the pope while living under the constant threat of nuclear war. The red telephone in their home symbolized his father's power and the family's proximity to national security decisions. The civil rights movement, Martin Luther King Jr.'s leadership, changes in the Catholic Church, and the Vietnam War created an unbridgeable divide between father and son. They disagreed fundamentally on issues that defined their generation. Carroll chose the priesthood, then later left to become a writer and start his own family. Only then did he begin to understand the pressures and moral complexities his father had navigated. This memoir represents Carroll's effort to honor his father's memory and make peace with their family's painful history during America's most turbulent decades.
Genres: 20th-century, american, biography-memoir, american-history
Vibes: emotional, intimate, thought-provoking
Tropes: father-son-relationship, generational-divide
Setting: Pentagon, FBI, Catholic Church
Period: Cold War, Vietnam War, Civil Rights Movement
352 pages · Paperback · Harper Paperbacks