New York Times columnist Dan Barry sings, to startling and profound effect, the song of his life. Beginning with his boyhood in a distant time when Kennedy was president and Mantle was God, Barry weaves the rhythms of Galway, Ireland - his mother's birthplace - and Deer Park, New York, to tell the story of an unforgettable American family.From his comic recollections of a familiar yet distinctly quirky upbringing to his account of landing a job in one of the nation's greatest newsrooms, Barry writes so crisply that we feel his emotions as we recall our own. We remember again the timeless joy of playing for a Little League team, this one oddly called the Ducks, as well as the riotous indignities of being hazed on the high school bus. Later, we experience the thrilling responsibility of working as a small-town, New England reporter; the galvanizing fear of facing a life-threatening illness; and the spiritual calm that comes from just shooting baskets.As he tells his story, Barry draws poignant portraits of those who shaped his life: his mother, Noreen, passing on her father's stories of the banshee's wail as a blue veil of cigarette smoke envelops her; his father, Gene, railing against big-business conspiracies when he is not in the clutch of cluster migraines; his three siblings beside him in the back of the family station wagon, joining their parents in searching the night skies for the UFOs that they fervently believe will one day appear; and a young woman in upstate New York who answers a bold question from Barry that changes their lives. Read Less