This article is written as a personal letter to the author of A Need to Know. The letter responds to the freshness of the narrative writing in the book, its risks and rewards, and questions whether this is a book about “knowing” or about “feeling.” Shame, pain, loneliness, and rage are feelings often felt but not expressed in relationships between fathers and sons, and like many narratives, A Need to Know aspires to truth but can make no claim to it. Narrative is not merely an inheritance; it's also a way of continuing a relationship marked by the silence of death through linking the past to the future, giving one's life a sense of continuity and integrity.
Anderson, R. (1968). I never sang for my father: A play in two acts . New York: Dramatists Play Service, Inc.
2.
Bochner, A. (1994). Perspectives on inquiry II.: Theories and stories . In M. Knapp and G. R. Miller (Eds.), Handbook of interpersonal communication (2nd ed.) (pp. 21-41). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
3.
Bochner, A. (1997). It's about time: Narrative and the divided self . Qualitative Inquiry, 3, 418-438.
4.
Bochner, A. (2002). Perspectives on inquiry III.: The moral of stories . In M. Knapp and John Daly (Eds.), Handbook of Interpersonal Communication (3rd ed.) (pp. 73-101). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
5.
Broyard, A. (1992). Requiem. In R. Keyes (Ed.), Sons on fathers: A book of men's writing (p. 209). New York : Harper Perennial.
6.
Bruner, J. (1990). Acts of meaning. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
7.
Denzin, N. (2003). Performance ethnography: Critical pedagogy and the politics of culture. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
8.
Goodall, B. (2006). A need to know: The clandestine history of a CIA family. Walnut Creek, CA: Left Coast Press.
9.
Ellis, C. (2004). The ethnographic I: A methodological novel about autoethnography. Walnut Creek, CA: AltaMira.
10.
Goffman, E. (1959). The presentation of self in everyday life. New York: Doubleday.
11.
Keyes, R. (Ed.). (1992). Sons on fathers: A book of men's writing. New York: Harpers Perennial.
12.
Parry, A., & Doan, R. (1994). Story re-visions: Narrative therapy in the postmodern world. New York: Guilford.
13.
Phillips, A. (1994). On flirtation. Cambridge, MA : Harvard University Press.
14.
Turner, V. (1986). The anthropology of performance. New York: Performing Arts Journal Publications.
