After Visiting Friends by Michael Hainey

I originally picked up the audio After Visiting Friends because although it was in the biography section, the blurb on the cover almost made it sound like a mystery. And it was, but also so much more.

Michael Hainey, an editor for GQ, lost his father, a Chicago newspaperman, when he was just 6 years old. At the time, he remembers being told his father died "after visiting friends" and was found by police in the street in an area that he really had no reason to be. Somehow, even as a child, this did not seem right.

It is not until he is an adult that he decides he must find out what really happened on the night his father died.

At this point, the story really becomes more of  a history lesson on what the newspaper industry in Chicago was like in the 1960s. And how these men took care of their own, no matter what. Michael Hainey discovers a lot more more about his father than he could have ever hoped for, as well as things he may have wished he had been kept in the dark about.

This is a fascinating story! If you do end up listening to it, be sure and pick up the actual book so you can take a look at the pictures.

Karen