The house was small, built on the GI Bill. In its knotty-pine kitchen, beneath the gaze of countless wooden eyes darkened by cigarette smoke, "My dad told war stories."

Scores of war stories, for endless hours, for years, in unusual detail.

Tom Ahern has authored a dozen books. Today, he is an internationally recognized expert on charity communications. He also won an NEA Fellowship in fiction.

This is his untamed memoir of growing up in an Irish-Scottish-American, Catholic-Protestant household ... where any mention of sex was taboo, men were seen as weak, women as strong, and religious warfare arrived with supper.

Tom's dad was a 1919 flu-epidemic orphan. Survived the Great Depression. Survived combat in World War 2. Survived a lifetime in a factory. Survived a son who turned on him, as the Vietnam War drifted into "nuts." Survived a wife who rose to the management of a daily newspaper; then killed herself. This is one insider's perspective.