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Table of Contents
About The Book
This haunting story of a son’s quest to understand the mystery of his father’s death is “searing and unforgettable…memoir writing at its best” (San Francisco Chronicle)—a “powerfully affecting” (O, The Oprah Magazine) portrait of a family and its legacy of secrets.
“Family? Secrets? Sometimes I think they are the same thing.” So writes Michael Hainey in this unforgettable story of a son’s search to discover the decades-old truth about his father’s mysterious death. Hainey was a boy of six when his father, a bright and shining star in the glamorous, hard-living world of 1960s Chicago newspapers, died under mysterious circumstances. His tragic absence left behind not only a young widow and two small sons but questions about family and truth that would obsess Michael for decades.
Years later, Michael undertakes a risky journey to uncover the true story about what happened to his father. Prodding reluctant relatives and working through a network of his father’s old colleagues, Michael begins to reconcile the father he lost with the one he comes to know. At the heart of his quest is his mother, a woman of courage and tenacity—and a steely determination to press on with her life. A universal story of love and loss and the resilience of family in the face of hardship, After Visiting Friends is the account of a son who goes searching for his father, and in the journey discovers new love and admiration for his mother.
“Family? Secrets? Sometimes I think they are the same thing.” So writes Michael Hainey in this unforgettable story of a son’s search to discover the decades-old truth about his father’s mysterious death. Hainey was a boy of six when his father, a bright and shining star in the glamorous, hard-living world of 1960s Chicago newspapers, died under mysterious circumstances. His tragic absence left behind not only a young widow and two small sons but questions about family and truth that would obsess Michael for decades.
Years later, Michael undertakes a risky journey to uncover the true story about what happened to his father. Prodding reluctant relatives and working through a network of his father’s old colleagues, Michael begins to reconcile the father he lost with the one he comes to know. At the heart of his quest is his mother, a woman of courage and tenacity—and a steely determination to press on with her life. A universal story of love and loss and the resilience of family in the face of hardship, After Visiting Friends is the account of a son who goes searching for his father, and in the journey discovers new love and admiration for his mother.
Reading Group Guide
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This reading group guide for After Visiting Friends includes an introduction and discussion questions. The suggested questions are intended to help your reading group find new and interesting angles and topics for your discussion. We hope that these ideas will enrich your conversation and increase your enjoyment of the book.
Introduction
After Michael Hainey’s uncle knocked on the back door one morning to tell his young mother that her husband, Bob Hainey, had died the past night near his car on Chicago’s North Side, the six-year-old Michael and his older brother Chris learned to grow up without a dad. Michael spends his childhood absorbing the quiet wisdom of his single mother and nurturing his own ambition to follow in his father’s footsteps as a newspaperman. Then when he reaches thirty-five, the age his father was when he died, Michael puts his own skills as a reporter to use investigating inconsistencies surrounding Bob Hainey’s death. In his quest for truth amidst the past newsrooms of Chicago he uncovers an enduring allegiance between his father’s old buddies, but more importantly discovers new love and admiration for his mother.
Topics & Questions for Discussion
1. On the first page of After Visiting Friends, Michael Hainey’s grandmother tells him of family stories: “There’s lots of stories you haven’t heard.” What are some of the stories inside of your family that you have uncovered—or, perhaps, wish you could uncover?
2. In the course of reporting his story, Hainey learns from his mother how his parents met (at a Kentucky Derby party), and where they went on their first date—as well as the song they fell in love to (pages 27–33). Do you know how your parents met? Where they went on their first date?
3. Hainey writes about how, “After [my father] died, silence descends. Silence and fear” (page 48). And he writes, too, about his mother’s adherence to the ideal of “omertà” from the movie The Godfather. Do you agree that silence breeds fear inside of a family? Why do some family members go silent after they lose a loved one?
4. When Hainey turns thirty-five, he withdraws into himself. He writes, “For most of my life I have believed I was never going to outlive my father, that I would never make it to thirty-six. I believe his sentence was my sentence” (page 73). Why do you think Hainey identifies so much with his father that he suffers a “functioning breakdown”?
5. Faith plays a strong role in the book. We see it in Hainey’s grandmother. We witness it in Jan Scott. And we see Hainey wrestling with his life not just in the wake of his loss, but as he journeys through life. On pages 65 and 66 he says, “I’ve often wished my faith were stronger.” Hainey also considers the parable of the prodigal son as well as the story of Lazarus. Can you talk about the times in your life when your faith was tested? What would you tell Hainey?
6. Hainey describes his mother as a woman who values her rituals and habits: She closely monitors the sump pump levels in her home (page 79); she requests that he send her the crossword puzzle from the Sunday edition of The New York Times each week (page 80); she asks him to bring his laundry for her to wash and iron each time he visits (page 81). How do these customs bring Hainey and his mother closer together? How do they also maintain a distance between them?
7. At the same time that Hainey is trying to uncover memories, his grandmother is drifting into dementia, and trying desperately to hold on to her memories. At one point she tells him, “Absence makes the heart wonder” (page 99). Who, in your family, is the keeper of memories? Do you agree that absence makes the heart wonder?
8. Hainey spends time going through the objects in his father’s wallet when he visits his mother, listing the various cards and photographs for the reader so that they speak for themselves (pages 91–93). What details about Bob Hainey’s life can you piece together from his effects? How does Hainey’s experience in this section compare with his memory of receiving a wallet as a gift from his grandfather on page 145?
9. During his road trip with his brother and nephew, Hainey claims that a need “to set others at ease” and for “a never-ending search for answers” are characteristics of people in what he thinks of as the “Death Fathers Club.” Do you agree that individuals who lost a father at a young age often also share personality traits?
10. Jan Scott, from the medical examiner’s office, and Lynne Codjoe from Thorek Hospital are two strangers who, through their kindness and help, play crucial roles in Michael’s search for answers. Discuss strangers you have encountered who made a difference in your life.
11. Conversations with Craig Klugman (page 188–193) and Jim Hoge (pages 193–197) in After Visiting Friends reveal a lot about the office culture of newspapers in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Compare these office descriptions with offices you’ve worked in or experienced. How have women in the workplace, drinking habits, and paperwork changed from 1970 to today?
12. After Thorek Memorial Hospital asks Hainey for his mother’s approval to release his father’s emergency room records, he forges her signature to have them mailed to him (page 216). What do you think of his choice to forge the document? How does his memory on page 216 of his mother changing her signature from “Mrs.” to “Ms.” appear to influence his decision?
13. When Hainey asks Tom Moffett why he is proud that Bob Hainey’s friends stuck together to hid the circumstances of his death, Moffett replies, “It’s what a man does. It’s the newspaperman’s code” (page 232). Discuss what kind of obligation you think friends and coworkers have to the family of a deceased individual. Is it sometimes more important to preserve the dignity of the dead than to expose the truth?
14. On page 243, Hainey begins to imagine Bobbie Hess and Bob Hainey’s final moments together in brief, often tender scenes. How does the author’s choice to imbue his father’s lover with a voice show the way he comes to terms with the details of Bob Hainey’s death?
15. On the way home from his grandmother’s funeral, Hainey’s mother stops to feed Ritz Crackers to a small herd of deer. When a buck gets too close for Hainey’s comfort, he attempts to tiptoe in to rescue her, but also finds himself transfixed by this moment with nature. Do you think this scene offers a sense of closure following the funeral? Discuss.
16. Consider the passage in which Hainey visits his father’s high school reunion. The experience brings him to tears, drawing him closer to a community of people who admired the father he barely knew (page 273). How do communities throughout After Visiting Friends offer support to individuals in need? Which communities do you identify with most in the book?
17. Hainey makes the decision to tell his mother about her husband’s affair when he meets with his brother on page 289. Can you think of a case in your life or the life of a friend when a family secret was divulged? How did different people react to the news?
18. At the end of the book, we learn from Hainey’s mother that there were other problems in her marriage that he could not perceive as a six-year-old, that Bob Hainey “had his demons” (page 298). Discuss how Hainey reacts to this information. Do the facts surrounding Bob Hainey’s death lessen the son’s view of his father or only strengthen his love for his mother?
Introduction
After Michael Hainey’s uncle knocked on the back door one morning to tell his young mother that her husband, Bob Hainey, had died the past night near his car on Chicago’s North Side, the six-year-old Michael and his older brother Chris learned to grow up without a dad. Michael spends his childhood absorbing the quiet wisdom of his single mother and nurturing his own ambition to follow in his father’s footsteps as a newspaperman. Then when he reaches thirty-five, the age his father was when he died, Michael puts his own skills as a reporter to use investigating inconsistencies surrounding Bob Hainey’s death. In his quest for truth amidst the past newsrooms of Chicago he uncovers an enduring allegiance between his father’s old buddies, but more importantly discovers new love and admiration for his mother.
Topics & Questions for Discussion
1. On the first page of After Visiting Friends, Michael Hainey’s grandmother tells him of family stories: “There’s lots of stories you haven’t heard.” What are some of the stories inside of your family that you have uncovered—or, perhaps, wish you could uncover?
2. In the course of reporting his story, Hainey learns from his mother how his parents met (at a Kentucky Derby party), and where they went on their first date—as well as the song they fell in love to (pages 27–33). Do you know how your parents met? Where they went on their first date?
3. Hainey writes about how, “After [my father] died, silence descends. Silence and fear” (page 48). And he writes, too, about his mother’s adherence to the ideal of “omertà” from the movie The Godfather. Do you agree that silence breeds fear inside of a family? Why do some family members go silent after they lose a loved one?
4. When Hainey turns thirty-five, he withdraws into himself. He writes, “For most of my life I have believed I was never going to outlive my father, that I would never make it to thirty-six. I believe his sentence was my sentence” (page 73). Why do you think Hainey identifies so much with his father that he suffers a “functioning breakdown”?
5. Faith plays a strong role in the book. We see it in Hainey’s grandmother. We witness it in Jan Scott. And we see Hainey wrestling with his life not just in the wake of his loss, but as he journeys through life. On pages 65 and 66 he says, “I’ve often wished my faith were stronger.” Hainey also considers the parable of the prodigal son as well as the story of Lazarus. Can you talk about the times in your life when your faith was tested? What would you tell Hainey?
6. Hainey describes his mother as a woman who values her rituals and habits: She closely monitors the sump pump levels in her home (page 79); she requests that he send her the crossword puzzle from the Sunday edition of The New York Times each week (page 80); she asks him to bring his laundry for her to wash and iron each time he visits (page 81). How do these customs bring Hainey and his mother closer together? How do they also maintain a distance between them?
7. At the same time that Hainey is trying to uncover memories, his grandmother is drifting into dementia, and trying desperately to hold on to her memories. At one point she tells him, “Absence makes the heart wonder” (page 99). Who, in your family, is the keeper of memories? Do you agree that absence makes the heart wonder?
8. Hainey spends time going through the objects in his father’s wallet when he visits his mother, listing the various cards and photographs for the reader so that they speak for themselves (pages 91–93). What details about Bob Hainey’s life can you piece together from his effects? How does Hainey’s experience in this section compare with his memory of receiving a wallet as a gift from his grandfather on page 145?
9. During his road trip with his brother and nephew, Hainey claims that a need “to set others at ease” and for “a never-ending search for answers” are characteristics of people in what he thinks of as the “Death Fathers Club.” Do you agree that individuals who lost a father at a young age often also share personality traits?
10. Jan Scott, from the medical examiner’s office, and Lynne Codjoe from Thorek Hospital are two strangers who, through their kindness and help, play crucial roles in Michael’s search for answers. Discuss strangers you have encountered who made a difference in your life.
11. Conversations with Craig Klugman (page 188–193) and Jim Hoge (pages 193–197) in After Visiting Friends reveal a lot about the office culture of newspapers in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Compare these office descriptions with offices you’ve worked in or experienced. How have women in the workplace, drinking habits, and paperwork changed from 1970 to today?
12. After Thorek Memorial Hospital asks Hainey for his mother’s approval to release his father’s emergency room records, he forges her signature to have them mailed to him (page 216). What do you think of his choice to forge the document? How does his memory on page 216 of his mother changing her signature from “Mrs.” to “Ms.” appear to influence his decision?
13. When Hainey asks Tom Moffett why he is proud that Bob Hainey’s friends stuck together to hid the circumstances of his death, Moffett replies, “It’s what a man does. It’s the newspaperman’s code” (page 232). Discuss what kind of obligation you think friends and coworkers have to the family of a deceased individual. Is it sometimes more important to preserve the dignity of the dead than to expose the truth?
14. On page 243, Hainey begins to imagine Bobbie Hess and Bob Hainey’s final moments together in brief, often tender scenes. How does the author’s choice to imbue his father’s lover with a voice show the way he comes to terms with the details of Bob Hainey’s death?
15. On the way home from his grandmother’s funeral, Hainey’s mother stops to feed Ritz Crackers to a small herd of deer. When a buck gets too close for Hainey’s comfort, he attempts to tiptoe in to rescue her, but also finds himself transfixed by this moment with nature. Do you think this scene offers a sense of closure following the funeral? Discuss.
16. Consider the passage in which Hainey visits his father’s high school reunion. The experience brings him to tears, drawing him closer to a community of people who admired the father he barely knew (page 273). How do communities throughout After Visiting Friends offer support to individuals in need? Which communities do you identify with most in the book?
17. Hainey makes the decision to tell his mother about her husband’s affair when he meets with his brother on page 289. Can you think of a case in your life or the life of a friend when a family secret was divulged? How did different people react to the news?
18. At the end of the book, we learn from Hainey’s mother that there were other problems in her marriage that he could not perceive as a six-year-old, that Bob Hainey “had his demons” (page 298). Discuss how Hainey reacts to this information. Do the facts surrounding Bob Hainey’s death lessen the son’s view of his father or only strengthen his love for his mother?
About The Author
Photograph by Mark Seliger
Michael Hainey is the deputy editor of GQ. He was born in Chicago and now lives in Manhattan.
Product Details
- Publisher: Scribner (February 18, 2014)
- Length: 320 pages
- ISBN13: 9781451676617
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Raves and Reviews
“[A] searing and unforgettable memoir…Simply put, After Visiting Friends is memoir writing at its best…Gut wrenching, riveting and touching.”
– James McGrath Morris, The San Francisco Chronicle
“Hainey’s words are clear, swift, colorful, precise, sometimes devastating.”
– Tucker Shaw, The Denver Post
“[A] powerfully affecting memoir…”
– O, the Oprah magazine
“A gripping real-life mystery…Michael Hainey has written a heartbreaking book, a page-turner that spurs the reader forward.”
– Neil Steinberg, Chicago Sun-Times
“A well-reported story beautifully told. [Michael Hainey’s] father could only be proud.”
– Craig Wilson, USA Today
“After Visiting Friends is full of love for the lost world of nocturnal newspaper work and after-hours boozing.”
– Janet Maslin, The New York Times
“A fascinating, honest, and deeply touching story about a father and son, the price of family secrets, and the redemptive power of truth…Readers will be captivated and moved.”
– Rick Kogan, Chicago Tribune
“Hacking through the tangles of conspiracy and silence, Hainey is as dogged as Marlowe or Spade, but his path is illuminated by a warmth of spirit those sleuths lacked.”
– Chris Wallace, The Daily Beast
“Hainey is a tremendously talented writer. He has written a thrilling page-turner, in a style that is personally reflective and meticulously reported. His prose is crisp and efficient—poetic.”
– David Bernstein, Chicago Magazine
“Peering into an uncomfortable past, the journalist traces his family’s history with dramatic, highly readable prose that makes the story feel like a compelling mystery.”
– Time Out New York
“Part what next? detective story, part moving family portrait, and part wistful ode to the whiskey-sloshed mid-century Chicago newspaper world…”
– Rob Brunner, Entertainment Weekly
“Since the age of six, Michael Hainey had been haunted by the mysterious death of his father, a Chicago newspaperman. In After Visiting Friends he recounts in moving detail the obstacles he faced in uncovering the truth.”
– Elissa Schappell, Vanity Fair
“[After Visiting Friends] moves with the pace of a thriller…it’s both tenderhearted and tough. Michael Hainey is blessed with his father’s writing crops, his mother’s steely resolve and his own, hard-won wisdom.”
– Dan Cryer, Newsday
“Captivating and poignant…”
– Randy Dotinga, Christian Science Monitor
“In a sea of self-discovery memoirs, After Visiting Friends stands out for its level of journalistic inquiry…This doggedness is what brings Mr. Hainey to the truth about his dad.”
– Rafi Kohan, New York Observer
“After Visiting Friends is a devastating, heat-seeking, investigative search for the truth...The gorgeousness of Hainey’s prose turns the search into an interior odyssey, to the limits of memory, to expiring minds that can no longer account for their undoing, to the dreams applied to family members who are no longer there.”
– Christopher Bollen, Interview
“[A] terrific memoir…Hainey’s representation of his mother bursts with love and awe…The questions of family, loyalty and truth emerge in After Visiting Friends and will resonate with just about everyone. The surprise—for Hainey and the reader—is recognition of the compassion behind the cover-up."
– Angela Matano, Campus Circle
“[After Visiting Friends is] an elegy to a vanished era of newspapering.”
– Michael Miner, Chicago Reader
“Hainey’s recollection of a childhood defined by his father’s absence is haunting…Hainey’s candor in After Visiting Friends, especially about the self-doubt and frustration that accompany his quest, makes it easy for us to root for him—not just in the search for truth but in the emotional transformation that comes with it.”
– Ron Hogan, Shelf Awareness
“Hainey is a superb storyteller…Rock-solid reporting mixed with heartfelt vignettes, lovely imagery (Hainey is a published poet) and a certain fairness, grit and honesty toward anything and everyone involved make After Visiting Friends one of the best books we’ve read in recent memory.”
– J. Crew (tumblr)
“A stirring book…”
– Kay Johnson, Hutchinson Leader
“A beautifully written exploration of family bonds and the secrets that may test them.”
– Vanessa Bush, Booklist
“Hainey’s writing is balletic, nimbly avoiding both sentimentality and sensationalism, making grief and absence into powerful and fully felt forces. His short scenes appear like flashes of memory, prose poems of what once was, and he skillfully weaves a narrative that transcends his own and spans generations...Part elegy, part mystery and wholly unforgettable.”
– Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
"Michael Hainey makes his quest for answers about his father read like a thriller. Then, just when he’s got you turning pages as fast as you can, he stops you with a heartrending detail, or steers you into some drowsy gin mill or fading prairie town for a sidebar of blunt-force power. By the end you’re wrung out, but also uplifted."
– J.R. Moehringer, author of Sutton and The Tender Bar
"As much an elegy to a once-upon-a-time era in American newspapers as it is a journey back, into a family and its past, to find truth. With poetic grace and taut investigative storytelling, Michael Hainey's After Visiting Friends shows how to keep going we sometimes need to pause and look back at where and who we come from."
– Nick Flynn, auhor of The Reenactments
“Is there any more powerful story in the world than a boy looking for his father? Michael Hainey's memoir begins with a mysterious death, proceeds through years of unanswered questions, builds into a relentless investigation, and ends with the stubborn alchemy of a heart transformed. This is a beautiful work of reporting and redemption. Parts of this story will stay with me forever. I finished it in tears."
– Elizabeth Gilbert, author of Eat, Pray, Love and Committed
“Michael Hainey's After Visiting Friends is my sort of book, a Chicago book, a family book of secrets. The powerful mystery at the heart of this story will pull you through to the moving ending, but its Hainey's straightforward and harrowing honesty that will grip you and stay with you. There's great dignity in the way Hainey treats his people, and this lost story.”
– Peter Orner, author of Love and Shame and Love
“Michael Hainey is a great writer. His memoir, After Visiting Friends, is not only gripping and powerful, but it is impeccably written. With a deft hand and a gentle touch, memoir becomes mystery in a world that brings back a bygone era of newspapermen. Hainey takes us through a deeply poignant journey of self-discovery—about how hard it is to sort out who we are and why we are and how our searches can lead to the most unexpected, but most satisfying, discoveries.”
– David Sheff, author of Beautiful Boy
“I inhaled this story. Everything you want and need in a book. I started chapter one with my coffee in the morning and then never made it to work. A beautiful book.”
– Gabrielle Hamilton, author of Blood, Bones & Butter
"A book whose heartbreak and humor, in the true Irish tradition, can't be untangled. It's a kind of detective story, but the mystery is the past itself."
– John Jeremiah Sullivan, author of Pulphead
Resources and Downloads
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- Book Cover Image (jpg): After Visiting Friends Trade Paperback 9781451676617
- Author Photo (jpg): Michael Hainey Photograph by Mark Seliger(0.1 MB)
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