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In my father's footsteps

William Matthews was a much-admired, award-winning poet and teacher who lived hard and died suddenly in 1997 at the age of 55. He was a jazz fan, a wit and racanteur, a connoisseur of fine food and wine, and a thrice-married womanizer. This memoir pays homage to a charismatic father as the son struggles to step out from his considerable shadow. In examining his father's life and death, Sebastian Matthews explores his own chaotic past. A child of divorce, he was shuttled throughout his boyhood between parents and many geographies. In a confusing symbiotic time between Bill's marriages, the teenage son and his father "were roommates and drinking buddies - I took care of him; he parented me." Later came the son's wanderings and failed commitments. Finally, Sebastian learns to confront Bill's mixed legacy. Striving to emualte the best of that "sad, happy" man, he discovers new definitions of home, love and marriage.