How does a man whose reckless actions once made national headlines for months reinvent himself so completely that his own child never discovers his past? Until 1994, when I was twenty-eight years old, my father maintained his extraordinary secrets even from his grave where he laid since 1976. My mother, his friends, and our family all kept his past hidden from me during his life and long after his death.
Most of the secret-keepers who protected my father's history are gone now, making certain parts of this memoir straightforward to write – there are no reputations left to protect, no one to embarrass or expose. But writing about the years I shared with my father presented a more complex challenge. My cousins, siblings, and family friends still live with their own versions of the past. Where does my story end and theirs begin? What pieces of our interwoven history are mine to tell?
Our family tapestry is rich with contradictions. Under one roof, each of us experienced profoundly different relationships with our parents. My sister Lucy found in our father a source of affection and nurturing care, while her relationship with our mother was strained. I lived the opposite reality – my father's presence often brought tension and abuse, while my mother offered kindness and comfort. These contrasting truths existed simultaneously, each equally valid in its own way.
Memory itself proves selective and deeply personal. My siblings and I often recall the same events differently – or sometimes not at all. I've learned that people can share a home, a childhood, a family, yet emerge with vastly different emotional landscapes shaped by their individual experiences.
While others appear in these pages, this memoir tells my story. It honors my truth while acknowledging that others who shared these years with me carry their own equally valid versions of our shared past.
— JDP