Mysteries of My Father

"Thomas Fleming gives us an unforgettable story about an immigrant family--his family--as it struggles to find a place in the American century. He shares with us the dreams and heartaches of his parents, and, in the end, he reminds us of the mysterious and forgiving power of love." --Terry Golway, author of The Irish in America

In Mysteries of My Father, watch Teddy Flemming rise in Frank Hague's bare-knuckled Irish-American political machine, which dominated Jersey City and the state of New Jersey for thirty-two years. Thomas Flemming tells both the public and the private stories--such as his parents' violent quarrels, his mother's shame at being Irish, and her embittered attempts to make her son an antagonist against the man she publicly admired and privately disdained. 

Again and again, the son found himself baffled by his discoveries about his father, including the heartbreaking poem "My Buddy" that this tough laconic man hung on his bedroom wall and "The Guy in the Glass," hidden in his bureau drawer, about how every man "in his struggle for self" must somehow keep his self-respect. At the heart of the drama is a riveting cry that the sixteen-year-old son elicited from Teddy Fleming when he said he did not love him: "You and your brother. You're all I've got."

From Ireland's County Mayo to Jersey City's City Hall, Fleming's gripping narrative encapsulated the pride and pain of being Irish in the first decades of the twentieth century. More than a history of the Irish in America, more than a family saga, Mysteries of My Father opens your heart to a son's struggle to survive and ultimately heal his wounds through hard-won understanding and love.