“The Death of My Father the Pope”

It's no secret that I love a good memoir and this one, "The Death of My Father the Pope: a Memoir" by Obed Silva does not disappoint. This is no saccharine retelling of a father-son relationship; instead, this memoir details the addiction that led to the fracturing of a family and ultimately the death of Silva's father at age 48. There are so many unique things about this book. My favorite is that the story is rooted in the day Silva returns to his hometown to say goodbye to his father's body before it is buried. We, as readers, constantly return to the funeral home in Chihuahua, Mexico as we dip and dive through the memories of Silva and his father and the alcoholism that plagues them both.

There are many memoirs about addiction, more about grief but few that offer as unflinchingly honest a gaze into the link between the two and the legacy they both portend. The landscape of this impoverished Mexican family and the rich traditions in honoring their dead compels the reader to consider our own heritage and the expectations it saddles us with. As a bonus, Silva sprinkles literary anecdotes into his story, creating a riveting and immersive read.

From the book jacket, "With a wry cynicism; a profane, profound anger; an antic, brutally honest voice; and a hard-won classical frame of reference, Silva channels the heartbreak of mourning while wrestling with the frustration resulting from addiction."