In My Father's Name - Hardcover

Arax, Mark

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0684808455 ISBN 13: 9780684808451

Publisher: Simon & Schuster, 1996

Synopsis

A "Los Angeles Times" reporter recounts his twenty-two-year search for the truth behind his father's murder, an event that devastated his childhood and eventually revealed startling truths

About this title

Reviews

In 1972, Arax's father, Ara, was killed by two shooters at his Fresno nightclub, when Mark was 15; the murder was never solved. But the bond between father and son was especially strong, and Mark, who went on to become a journalist with the Los Angeles Times, struggled for years with his compulsion to solve it. Eventually, he moved back to his hometown for that purpose. This unusual, introspective memoir is the result. It reveals that the large Armenian American community in Fresno was made up of survivors of the 1915 Turkish massacre and their descendants, who fought against constant discrimination. Mark's father and his uncle built a chain of five groceries, which failed, and Ara then bought the nightclub, where drugs became an increasing problem. The idealistic and stubborn Ara came to know who the big drug dealers were. Determined to blow the whistle on them, he revealed his plans to some of the very policemen who were protecting them. The murder came soon after. Mark developed a clear idea of who the architects of the slaying were as well as insights into his father, other family members, the "fetid town" and, most important, himself. Although overlong, his book makes for absorbing reading.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

On January 2, 1972, two men walked into a Fresno, California, nightclub and shot the owner, Ara Arax, to death. Although it was one of the most sensational murders ever to take place in the area, the crime was never solved. In this riveting account of the event, Arax's son Mark, who was 15 years old at the time and is now an investigative reporter at the Los Angeles Times, attempts (20 years later) to solve the crime that destroyed his childhood. As he painstakingly interviews witnesses, regulars at the bar, friends, family members, and members of the local police force, he rekindles memories of his father that make the quest to find the killers almost too painful to bear. Arax persists, however, and eventually he is able to pin down the killers, finding that his father (who at the time of his death had been desperately seeking an audience with local law enforcement officials) was silenced by the local organized crime network. This narrative of his father's life and death (and his own pervasive sorrow and longing) is both electrifying in its intensity and heartbreaking in its raw emotion. Kathleen Hughes

Out of personal tragedy, Arax has fashioned a fascinating family saga with a very large dose of Armenian history thrown in. When Arax was 15, his father, Ara, was killed in his popular, profitable bar. Robbery was not the motive, and the murder was never solved. At age 32, Arax, an LA Times writer, decided to reconstruct his father's life by returning to Fresno, California, his boyhood home, and seeking the identity of the murderers. In his search, Arax learned much about his father, his family, and his hometown. Fresno was then well known for drugs, prostitution, and corruption. Ara's brother, Navo, was friendly with many of the drug smugglers, and somehow money meant to purchase a second bar was used to finance a drug buy. Arax ultimately came to believe that his father was killed because of many factors, including an effort to alert authorities about drug deals. He confirmed that his father was a good man, as he had thought as a child, and he forced his uncle Navo to acknowledge that some of his closest friends were responsible for Ara's death. A poignant and harrowing account, this is highly recommended.
Sandra K. Lindheimer, Middlesex Law Lib., Cambridge, Mass.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: Simon & Schuster
• Publication date: 1996
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0684808455
• ISBN 13: 9780684808451
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 400