ONE LAST SONG FOR MY FATHER

Fontánez offers a tribute to his late father, Modesto Fontánez Rivera.

Set against the beauty and hardship of rural Puerto Rico, Fontánez’s memoir explores—via writings and images—his fraught relationship with a complex man. Fontánez recounts his father’s mental decline into dementia—which steals his father’s memory but yields a new connection with his son. Now a successful artist in New York, the author confronts his childhood fear that he was a disappointment to his father by digging through his childhood memories. He reinterprets the behaviors of a man whose love of parties and music seemed to eclipse his love of everything else, including his family. Realizing that Modesto, too, was an artist, Fontánez discovers someone who, struggling with a modest life and considerable responsibilities, found freedom through the one form of emotional expression available—music. Juxtaposing Modesto’s brash, irresponsible youth with the docile older man he becomes, Fontánez unpacks the cultural pressures that repress male emotions, which, in turn, drive family dynamics. An imposing presence in the life of his son, Modesto is seen alternately as a hero and a villain but always as a man of nuanced passions. Fontánez portrays this fluidity by blending elements of personal narrative, journal entries, poetry, photographs, and artwork inspired by his childhood in Puerto Rico. The resulting eclectic work is as beautiful and readable as it is memorable.

Captivating from cover to cover, readers will share in the author’s struggle and celebration of family.