Half of the Way Home
CBC Books | CBC | Posted: December 28, 2017 3:05 PM | Last Updated: December 28, 2017
Adam Hochschild
This haunting and deeply honest memoir tells of Adam Hochschild's conflicted relationship with his father, the head of a multinational mining corporation. The author lyrically evokes his privileged childhood on an Adirondack estate, a colourful uncle who was a pioneer aviator and fighter ace and his first explorations of the larger world he encountered as he came of age in the tumultuous 1960s. But above all this is a story of a father and his only son and of the unexpected peace finally made between them. (From Houghton Mifflin Harcourt)
From the book
The most vivid memories I have of my childhood are of the summer evenings when Boris's plane took off. Boris Vasilievich Sergievsky, captain in the Imperial Russian air force, World War I fighter pilot, winner of the Order of St. George (which entitles the bearer to a personal audience with the Tsar, any time of day or night), test pilot for the Pan American Clippers of the 1930s, tenor, gourmet, lover, horseman and adventurer, was miraculously, my uncle. One day he had flown his plane down from the sky and, to the complete shick of all her relatives, had married my father's sister, Gertrude. She was then forty-one years old and had almost certainly never even kissed a man before. From that point on, life in our family was never the same.
From Half of the Way Home by Adam Hochschild ©2005. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.