In the process of taking care of his father, a 99-year-old World War II Veteran, who is declining steadily throughout the memoir, Chris Nelson is also taking care of himself. He embarks on a journey, one in which he plays the role of the explorer trying to discover and understand his life as it relates mainly to his father but also to other family members, especially his older brother. The book is full of little stories that, woven together, reveal much that he hadn't known before. He shares generously the vivid details of these stories. It doesn't take long for the reader to feel that she is on this important journey with him. We are as curious as the writer is about even the most mundane details. Juxtaposed with the mundane are extended analyses of serious subjects like music, science and religion. His views of each of these often differs sharply from his father's view, and yet it is often through his father that he first got interested in them. He intersperses his ideas on these large subjects with references to his present experiences, watching over his father and writing this memoir. How he deals with time in the writing reveals what he is engaged in as he is writing. He uses writing itself to get to the depths of his explorations and to help him through the difficult work of taking care of his father whose physical needs get harder and harder to manage. The reader is reminded often of the fact that Mr. Nelson is writing. He is writing now and he is caregiving now. This approach means that the memoir reads like a living and breathing document. We care as much about the caregiving as we do about what expertise he offers on classical music or religion or a story from his past that has some relevance to his relationship to his father. He operates on two different time levels, the present in real time and the past that he mines beautifully and deeply. He is very much the scientist that he claims to be, but he is also a poet, which makes this detailed exploration much more than a mere accounting of loss, or retelling of family lore, or examining the intricacies of what it means to be the dutiful son, as important as these are. His journey doesn't bring answers to all of his questions, but he seems to derive much from having finally had the courage to ask those questions. Barbara Wuest