In My Father's Footsteps: A Memoir

By Sebastian Matthews

Book Overview

William Matthews was a much-admired, award-winning poet and teacher who lived hard and died suddenly in 1997 at the age of fifty-five. He was a jazz fan, a wit and raconteur, a connoisseur of fine food and wine, and a thrice-married womanizer.

This clear-eyed, often wryly funny memoir pays homage to a charismatic father as the son struggles to step out from his considerable shadow. In examining his father's death (and life), Sebastian Matthews explores his own chaotic past. A child of divorce, he was shuttled throughout his boyhood between parents and many geographies. In a confusing symbiotic time between Bill's marriages, the teenage son and his father were roommates and drinking buddies--I took care of him; he parented me. Later came the son's wanderings, the failed commitments.

Finally Sebastian learns to confront Bill's mixed legacy. Striving to emulate the best of that sad, happy man, he discovers new definitions of home, love, and marriage.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0393338134
• ISBN13: 9780393338133
• Release Date: January 2004
• Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
• Length: 280 Pages
• Weight: 0.79 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 5.5" x 8.5"

Customer Reviews

Revealing Understanding

This poignant book by Sebastian Matthews is listed as a memoir of his father, but it could just as easily be found in the biography section. In recounting the life of a brilliant poet and, sometime less than wonderful father, Matthews turned his thoughts inward to give insight into the person he was and eventually struggles to become. This book often reads like a novel, a story of falling and then climbing to reach solid emotional ground. Anyone who struggles from the baggage left by parents who achieved success professionally but lacked parenting skills, can benefit from the story honestly told here. In understanding divorce, alcoholism, sexual infidelity and intimacy issues, Matthew ends the book on a high note where his career is now on solid ground and his personal life fulfilling. A great non-fiction read, I hope this is a starting point for other books from him outside of his normal poetry venue.