In My Father's Name

When Mark Arax was 15, his father, a Fresno, California, bar owner, was killed by two gunmen in what appeared to be "a hit." Arax became a journalist in order to acquire the skills he needed, and then 20 years later returned to Fresno to ferret out the truth about his father's murder. His book is a detailed and absorbing account of multiple generations of his Armenian family and of his quest to come to terms not only with his father's death and life, but also with his own obsession with the case. As the Los Angeles Times writes, "Almost every American town harbors some brutal secret, but few produce writers like Mark Arax with both the courage and artistic talent needed to coax the story out and shape it into fine literature. Of course, Arax had an extra incentive: the footsteps he followed ran straight through his own family, straight through his own heart."