Just hours after delivering his father\u2019s eulogy, Ken Weintraub learns that this hard-working, unassuming man spent three years in prison. Consumed by the astonishing news, Ken sets out to unravel the mystery. As he pries information from old friends, relatives, and others, he pieces together a portrait that\u2019s full of contradictions. Was his father an assassin\u2019s accomplice? A gullible victim? Or a heroic, loyal friend? Everywhere he turns, he hears stories that surprise him. Even when he thinks he knows the whole truth, there\u2019s still more to learn.<\/p>\n
“A heartfelt novel about a son\u2019s search for the truth about his seemingly ordinary father\u2019s hidden life, Eulogy<\/em> is achingly bittersweet. As he begins asking questions he isn\u2019t sure he wants to know the answers to, the son is forced to reassess everything he believes about the people he loves\u2014and ultimately examine his own life choices and decisions. Quietly observed and richly absorbing.” \u2014Christina Baker Kline, author of the #1 New York Times bestseller Orphan Train<\/em><\/p>\n “At the heart of this tender, engrossing novel are a father\u2019s secrets, a son\u2019s attempts to unearth them, and the son\u2019s struggle to understand why so much was kept hidden from him. Absorbing and perceptive.” \u2014Jane Bernstein, author of Loving Rachel<\/em> and The Face Tells the Secret<\/em><\/p>\n “Eulogy<\/em> captivates you almost immediately, with a subtlety that defies expectation. The story unfolds with humor and urgency, offering up a family secret (we all have \u2019em, though not quite like this) that slowly implodes. This book is a winner; it reminds you of the incredible power of the things that remain unsaid.” \u2014Robert Edelstein, Author of Full Throttle: The Life and Fast Times of NASCAR Legend Curtis Turner<\/em><\/p>\n “A carefully crafted and inherently fascinating novel\u2026 Eulogy<\/em> is a compelling and memorable read from first page to last.” \u2014\u00a0Midwest Book Review<\/em><\/p>\n I had written a eulogy on the plane. My father\u2019s life has always struck me as epic in scope\u2014the Depression, the war, his three careers and two wives\u2014and I found it surprisingly comfortable to stand at the lectern and share these stories with his many friends and relatives. What I hadn\u2019t anticipated was the stone in my throat. I\u2019ve been preparing myself for his death for six years, ever since his first stroke, but I had to stop twice and recover the ability to speak.<\/p>\n \u201cMy father may have been the happiest man I ever met. What makes this interesting is that he went though so much that could have embittered him. Childhood poverty. A war and a near-fatal wound. His wife\u2019s premature death. Two strokes. But I only saw him angry two or three times, and never heard him speak a resentful word.<\/p>\n \u201cMany of you already know the stories I\u2019m going to tell. But I\u2019d like to honor him by remembering his life, together with all of you.<\/p>\n \u201cHe grew up in Williamsburg, back when only poor people lived there. My grandparents had a fruit stand and my grandfather gave music lessons, but they couldn\u2019t afford to feed themselves and their children. My father spent a lot of time across the hall, with the Abneys\u2014a \u2018colored\u2019 family, as he called them\u2014who fed him and welcomed him to their parties, where he learned to dance. With his brother Sam, he explored the tunnels of the new subway line before the tracks were laid. Hot sweet potatoes cost five cents, he once told me. You\u2019d break one in half and share it with a brother or sister. Then you\u2019d suck it to get every last bit. That\u2019s everything I know about his childhood.<\/p>\n \u201cA neighbor helped get him a job making rosaries at a little shop called Muller\u2019s. (When people said, \u2018You made what?\u2019 he would shrug and explain, \u2018I needed a paycheck.\u2019) He took pride in his craftsmanship. I loved watching him twist wire with his needle-nose pliers: his skill amazed me. The store was on Barclay Street, around the corner from the Woolworth Building, and the nuns who came in were fond of him. They may have assumed he was Italian; he always looked Italian to me. When he was recovering from his wounds in an army hospital, a novena was said for him. I finally looked up what that means: nine days of prayer. I\u2019m guessing few Jews have received the honor.<\/p>\n \u201cHe enlisted in 1943, as soon as he turned eighteen. But he didn\u2019t want to marry my mother until he came home, in case \u2018something happened.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n (My draft included the tale of the German soldier and the ring. I left it out because I didn\u2019t want people to think of him that way: so powerless that his only recourse was to play dead.)<\/p>\n \u2026 \u201cThey gave him an IQ test and he did well. An officer asked him, \u2018How would you like to serve in the Air Corps, soldier?\u2019 Dad answered, \u2018I don\u2019t think I\u2019d like to jump out of a plane.\u2019 The officer said, \u2018I didn\u2019t ask you that.\u2019 Next thing he knew, the guy had angrily stamped his papers with the word Infantry\u2014the most dangerous place you could be.<\/p>\n \u201cOne other army story. Ten minutes before he got shot, he said to his friend Fred, \u2018These mountains would be a terrible place to get hit. They\u2019d never find you.\u2019 And they didn\u2019t find him, for twenty-four hours. He had sulfa drugs in his pack, and he took more than you were supposed to, to ward off infection.\u201d<\/p>\n (He peed blood, I had written, but I left that unsaid.)<\/p>\n Where did this story come from?<\/p>\n I\u2019d read a book called Beautiful Souls<\/em>, by Eyal Press, about ordinary people who go against the rules because of a deep sense of conscience. The most memorable story, for me, was the one about the Swiss policeman who helped Jewish refugees cross over from Austria in 1938. I wanted to create a story like that: the story of an ordinary man, not a heroic type, who risks himself somehow to save someone else.<\/p>\n But I saw that there might be even more to the story. It\u2019s not just that my hero did something brave, it\u2019s that his children never knew about it, because he was ashamed and kept it a secret. Why was he ashamed? Because he spent three years in prison as a result of this one impulsive act.<\/p>\n The other source of Eulogy<\/em>\u2019s plot was the experience of delivering a eulogy for my father. At first it went smoothly, but as I told certain stories, I found that my throat locked. I couldn\u2019t speak. That unexpected emotion turned into the heart of this book.<\/p>\n Is the story autobiographical? Not really. It\u2019s true that I took some of the details of Morris\u2019s biography straight from my father\u2019s life\u2014I love these stories, and wanted to bestow them on a beloved character\u2014but Morris, the fictional father, is nothing like my father. And I don\u2019t think I\u2019m much like Ken, the son.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"EXCERPT:<\/strong><\/h4>\n
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