King of the Rocks

Bill Green's father died suddenly when he was in Belfast. Spring was coming on, and Ireland was turning into its fabled green. When he returned for the funeral, he landed at JFK airport on his way home to Pittsburgh. Oddly, while on the concourse, he felt like he was floating. Green felt a deep sense of euphoria. Why did he take pleasure--for even a moment--in his father's death? In his mind, he had committed a grave and unforgiveable sin.

Who was this man, his father? Green believed that perhaps knowing more would relieve his unending sense of grief.

King of the Rocks is a book about searching the past; it is about psychoanalysis and dreams and about finding clues in a cache of old photos and letters. It is about baseball, exotic travel, polio, absence and drink, and the dense granitic silence of men.