THE DEATH OF MY FATHER THE POPE

A father’s death opens deep wounds.

Mexican-born Silva makes his book debut with a searing memoir of his alcoholic father and his own legacy of rage, drunkenness, and despair. Brought to California by his mother when he was 1, Silva grew up longing for his father’s love and attention. During visits to Chihuahua or his father’s rare visits to the U.S., he came to realize that the man was a drunk and a liar, “selfish” and “wickedly arrogant in his own ugly skin.” Returning to Mexico for his father’s funeral in 2009, Silva vented his anger at the man he describes as a “rolling stone” who “hated having to love; it was too heavy for his heart and so he fought against it to the end.” He demeaned his sons, “often brutally beat and abused” his wife, and gave up on a career as an artist because he lacked the self-discipline to work at it. Back amid his family for the funeral, Silva recalls the rare times his father nurtured him: taking him fishing, to bullfights, to a swimming park. But those memories have always been overwhelmed by hurt. In trouble during his teenage years, when he was 17, Silva was shot in the course of a robbery. The bullet left his legs paralyzed, and during his months of hospitalization, his father never came to see him. Failing to get the love he desperately desired, Silva, like his father, drowned his pain in alcohol and drugs. His drinking ended his marriage. “I am the drunk man who drinks to not feel alone,” he admits. “I am the drunk man who drinks to not feel at all.” Yet from his mother, who pushed him to get an education and rescued him when he got into trouble, he inherited a steely resolve. He became two men, he writes: one, a drunk; the other, an inspiring college professor. Both are well captured here.

A raw, probing narrative of pain.