The Prodigal Father: A True Story of
Tragedy, Survival, and Reconciliation in an American Family.
By Jon DuPre ©2006
As I said in different words
regarding Kumbe Ginnane’s “From Regret to Rape,” which I reviewed
recently, occasionally you have the privilege to read one of those
books that surpasses even other great books the way Bob Beamon’s
famous 29-foot-2.5-inch long jump at the 1968 Mexico City Olympics
soared far above what had been achieved before.
Jon DuPre’s achievement with
“The Prodigal Father” is stupefying. What this correspondent for Fox
Network News has done is so simple: He has told the story of his
family of origin, consisting of two brothers, himself, and his
mother and father. As a novel, the book would fail. For one thing,
the plot would be utterly unbelievable! But “The Prodigal Father” is
billed as an “autobiography,” and written with loving detail and
self-revelation so honest and so deep that took my breath away. As
such, it is utterly compelling and simultaneously completely
credible.
The childhoods of Jon and his
brothers were not blissful ones. They passed countless hours of
their youth stealing food from vending machines and waiting on
street corners until their father finally arrived around midnight
(or sometimes later) to take them home. Their depressed, ineffectual
mother was in no position to rescue them from their situation, and
their self-preoccupied, philandering, deceitful father also allowed
the woeful situation to continue. Jon and his siblings were forced
to accompany Dad on his visits to his mistresses and were made
complicit in the secrets being kept from Mom.
The author’s father is a real
paradox, an FBI agent and later a successful lawyer who challenged
the powers that be in their small Southern town to seek justice for
all of society’s downtrodden minority folks, and yet who eventually
falls apart and ends up homeless. Unresolved issues from Jon’s
childhood cloud his marriage to a former Miss Utah, also a
broadcaster, and eventually must be confronted. So Jon enters into
the underworld of the homeless, embracing it fully enough to
eventually find his father, sleeping on flophouse floors, begging
food, often going hungry, and always seeking greater understanding
of the mysterious territory inside Dad’s head. In a pivotal
confrontation, Jon and his father eventually find a way to face the
demons in each other, in themselves, and in all the dysfunction that
has sustained the family for so long. The author gets from his
father some of the answers he has been seeking, and in some ways the
unanswered queries teach him as much or more than the ones to which
his dad responds.
The lessons learned by the
author enable him to live a richer life with his wife and to raise
his own three children more heartfully. Jon’s brothers do not fare
as well as Jon does, but the tale is ultimately an inspiring one.
When an author can speak truth and stare his own flaws so squarely
in the face, he provides a service to us all as human beings. The
privilege of reading such a book is nothing less than a blessing, a
sacrament, a gift of inspiration straight from spirits greater than
any of us. Don’t miss it! Fly, don’t run, and certainly don’t walk,
to Carlsbad, California (oddly enough, the home of my own mother)
and get yourself a copy of Jon DuPre’s “The Prodigal Father.” But
act fast, because I’m planning on buying up copies for all my
friends and loved ones!
©2006 J. Steven Svoboda
