The book and podcast began with my father’s death in 2007. I began writing it as a straightforward memoir in 2012 but life got in the way. My life took a new turn in 2015 and the book and podcast had a new focus and ending by 2019. I fictionalized the story and protected my family’s privacy by changing all the names and places. Finding a narrator took the printed page to a new audio dimension.
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Murder of an Uncommon Man
An unexpected call from my father's second wife forced me to confront his life and death. A farmer found him shot in a field with a shotgun and I needed to explain why. From my home in Vancouver, half a continent away, I sifted through musty boxes and my own memories to piece together what happened to him over his last twelve years of estrangement. Poring over scribbled notes and emails, police reports, and my father’s well-worn Bible, I uncovered a life that ended in one of two ways. As I put the last pieces of the puzzle into place, a call from another family confirmed my suspicions: the killer had taken her next victim and a second family was helpless to stop her.
My memoir, with the names and places changed, chronicles my father's life and death, from his youth in the 1950s to unravelling the mystery of his death over ten years.
An unexpected call from my father's second wife forced me to confront his life and death. A farmer found him shot in a field with a shotgun and I needed to explain why. From my home in Vancouver, half a continent away, I sifted through musty boxes and my own memories to piece together what happened to him over his last twelve years of estrangement. Poring over scribbled notes and emails, police reports, and my father’s well-worn Bible, I uncovered a life that ended in one of two ways. As I put the last pieces of the puzzle into place, a call from another family confirmed my suspicions: the killer had taken her next victim and a second family was helpless to stop her.
My memoir, with the names and places changed, chronicles my father's life and death, from his youth in the 1950s to unravelling the mystery of his death over ten years.
Appears in episode
A.M. Kirsch
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