I liked it and I didn't like it. The writing is great, the author demonstrates his abilities and it is easy to see why he has won awards. The story is a bit odd, in that it follows two tracks in a bit of a random fashion. The first is the author's stroke and rehab when he is 69 years old, and the second is his father's journey into adulthood and into WW II, with the details drawn from his letters home to his wife and from unit histories that others have written. And a bit about Jonathan's early years while his father is away at war. But not much ties the two themes together. There is a sense of father and son not getting along very well for a long time, well into the author's adulthood, but nothing definitive, in my opinion. Glad I read it for the writing but I am not sure what the takeaway is here. The two themes are parallel, and in my opinion, rarely if ever intersect. So, probably 3.5 overall. ( )

His final writing and I miss him already. ( )