The Fathers We Find: The Making of a Pleasant, Humble Boy

Set amidst the farm fields and rolling hills of Southeastern Wisconsin, THE FATHERS WE FIND is a coming-of-age story that takes place between 1950 and 1971. This novel based on memory closely parallels the experiences of its author who grew up on a mink farm just outside of Sheboygan, Wisconsin. Drowning in a sea of nuns, priests, and hard-working church-goers, "Chuck," our narrator, stumbles his way to enlightenment with help from a series of delightful men in a journey that is simultaneously hilarious, poignant, and nostalgic.
Following his father's funeral, we find Chuck, a middle-aged man, sitting on the back porch of his parents' farm home trying to remember, "how he got here, to this place." His reflections take him back to his earliest memory, and his first job, at four years of age and the reward he would receive for becoming a little man. From there we find Chuck's mother praying that God make her first-born child a soldier in His army. Which He does. God follows that up by making five more of Helen and Carl's children recruits in His holy arsenal, causing parishioners to wonder if Helen and Carl might carry some sort of vocational virus. For some, this virus is a reason to draw near in hope of infection, and for others--well, it prompts them to run.

While prayerfully asking that he follow in his elder siblings footsteps, Chuck begins to see his shot at the priesthood slip through his hands when he realizes, in many veiled and not so veiled ways, that he may not be normal. Chuck resigns himself to life on the dust hip of his sacred family.