Truly, I wanted to love this book, but instead I am left with a sour taste in my mouth after finishing it. While I fell in love with Zach, Bissinger's mentally-impaired but delightful and loving son, his father Buzz comes across as such a narcissist that I just can't rate this book more highly. Because Mr. Bissinger focuses so much on his own interior whiny monologue, and his response to any kind of stress or frustration is to erupt in rage, I literally could not stand him by the end of the road trip he describes taking with Zach. I also felt that he used Zach to write a book, and therefore what kind things he did have to say about him felt saccharine and not particularly genuine. Just - blech. ( )

I cannot give this book a rating. I picked it up semi-randomly at the library, thinking I'd read a good review of it, but not really remembering much about it.

It would be churlish of me to complain about Bissinger's self-absorption and lack of filter; I had some inkling of it going in. I'll do it anyway, though. The book seesaws between genuine affection for Zach and a constant desire for Bissinger to turn the focus onto himself so he can show the reader exactly what kind of self-hating ass he is. It's not pleasant, and gives the reader, or at least me, the feeling that they're reading a self-propelled train wreck. In any memoir about a special needs child, there is a balance between respecting the child's boundaries and privacy, and writing an honest description of the parent's life. No one ever agrees on that boundary, but at times, my own personal boundaries were crossed. In addition, calling his own son "retarded" is a deliberate provocation.

To rate this would be dishonest. It is neither good nor bad; it is a testament to the author.

touching story by one of the nation's great journalist and author of Friday Night Lights. ( )

I have never read Buzz Bissinger's FRIDAY NIGHT LIGHTS, which has reportedly sold close to two million copies and also spawned a popular film and TV series of the same name. (Didn't see those either.) Bissinger wrote the book over twenty years ago and none of his books since have come even close to that early level of success.

I saw Bissinger recently when he was interviewed on stage by Detroit News columnist, Neal Rubin, for the National Writers Series ( http://nationalwritersseries.org/ ) in Traverse City, Michigan. Since Friday Night Lights is a book about Texas-style high school football, and I am not a particularly rabid sports fan, I didn't expect much at the NWS talk. Well, I was floored by the presentation, which concentrated, quite rightly, on Bissinger's 2012 book, FATHER'S DAY: A JOURNEY INTO THE MIND AND HEART OF MY EXTRAORDINARY SON. The interview ended with a well-deserved standing ovation from the near capacity crowd at the Opea House, and I could not wait to get back home and read this book.

Well, now I've read it and I was not disappointed. After his phenomenal early success with FNL (he was only 35), Bissinger has been disappointed in the mediocre responses to his subsequent books. Of course he is. The bar has simply been set way too high ever since. But as far as I'm concerned, Bissinger has scored an undeniable touchdown with FATHER'S DAY, his account of a 2007 cross country road trip he made with his 24 year-old son Zach, who suffered brain damage at birth, when he and his twin brother, Gerry, were born 13 weeks early. Gerry is now normal; Zach is not.

Having met and talked with Bissinger a bit prior to the presentation I was prepared not to like him, or his book. Dressed all in black, he came off as abrupt, caustic and just not very friendly. But during his interview, although visibly nervous, he was very frank, self-critical even, revealing that he suffered from depression and bipolarity, and took various meds for this. In the course of the book's narrative he describes various temper tantrums and meltdowns he had during the trip and characterizes himself as pessimistic, "sullen," and "volatile and inconsistent." And events in the book certainly bear this out. He often loses patience with his child-like son and berates him and screams at him. Then he is immediately sorry. Twice divorced, and now married again, Bissinger is a bundle of insecurites, anger and fear. His speech is laced with obscenities. There are plenty of things not to like about the man. But he so obviously loves his sons (all three of them), and his greatest fear, one that haunts him, is what will become of Zach once he and the boy's mother are gone. Perhaps one of the most wrenching passages in the book is the one where he describes a recurring image -

"I am gone and his mother is gone and Zach is old now, in his sixties, stooped and scraggly ... I see him walking the streets, on the way to some group home with his hands in his pockets, warding off the wind. I see his head cocked at that forty-five degree angle as he talks in his self-chastising way, and passersby edge away because this guy is on the edge. Through windows filled with greasy fingerprints, I see my son sitting on a bed beneath a ceiling lamp spitting out freezing light. I see him quiet on that bed with his hands clasped in front of him. And then I see him talking aloud to himself some more, which no one tries to silence because no one else is there."

Bissinger came from a background of wealth and privilege, attending private schools and an Ivy league college, but he's had his share of heartaches, beginning with a mother who was a working professional woman, and who he never felt really loved him. He often did not do well in school and felt like a failure. And yet he managed, becoming a newspaperman with a pretty good success record. His wicked sense of humor pops up throughout the narrative, even when he describes all the worries that constantly plague him, throwing in this one - "the only truly peaceful moment of the day of sitting on the john and realizing that the last roll of toilet paper is in the basement."

Because this is not only a story about Bissinger's disabled son; it is a memoir in the truest sense of the word as memories of his own childhood and adult years continue to creep in. The descriptions of his parents' deaths are as heart-rending as any ever written, despite his attempts to cover his feelings with a hard-bitten glaze.

This is a tender book about the often tenuous, always difficult relationship between fathers and sons. I thought about a couple other similar books I've read in the past year: Joe Blair's memoir BY THE IOWA SEA, about his stormy marriage and a severely autistic son; and Glen Finland's memoir about her autistic son, NEXT STOP. But Buzz Bissinger's book is in a class all its own. Can a book filled with bitterness, anger, frustration and obscenities be 'beautiful'? Because FATHER'S DAY has all those ingredients, but it has an abundance of something else which overrides all those negative feelings. Love. Buzz Bissinger so loves his children, and he wants so badly to do what's right for them. Yes, this is a beautiful book.

I've never read FRIDAY NIGHT LIGHTS, and probably never will. But I know this. FATHER'S DAY is a better book. It's a book that will resonate for a long long time with anyone who has ever been a father. My highest recommendation. ( )

Moving and thought provoking on so many levels. Made me think of my husband's premature start at 2+ pounds and how society is afraid of what is different in life. It made me think of our education system and how the US currently addresses those with special needs. Also made me examine what is really meaningful in my life and reaffirmed my belief in being a witness to my faith. What matters most to me, is how we treat others. I cried and laughed with the author and sincerely appreciate his sharing this story. ( )