My Father's Heart: A Son's Journey [Hardcover]

Steve McKee (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 23, 2008

Sixteen-year-old Steve McKee watched his father die of a heart attack on the couch in their TV room. A lifelong smoker and workaholic, John McKee had been floored by a heart attack five years earlier. The McKee clan-perhaps including a demoralized John himself-had long been waiting for the other shoe to drop. At age fifty-two, Steve McKee learned that he was his father’s son more than he had ever hoped-he, too, has serious cardiovascular disease. Haunted by his father’s seeming surrender to the condition, McKee set out to find the man who died before the son could know him. In so doing, what might he, Steve McKee, learn of himself? Chronicling the disorienting first days following John McKee’s death, My Father’s Heart is an extraordinary story of an all-too-ordinary scenario: A father dies, a son remains, and the loss casts a long shadow across a generation. Rich in evocative detail of time, place, and family, it is a powerful memoir of love, forgiveness, and finding oneself.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

At the age of 16, Wall Street Journal editor McKee (The Call of the Game) watched his 50-year-old father, John, drop dead of a massive heart attack. In this affecting memoir, he uses the trauma as a lens through which to view his family history. Early cardiac arrest was a hereditary constant for McKee's male relatives and an occupational hazard for postwar breadwinners like John, a World War II vet who smoked three packs a day, had a sedentary but hellishly stressful middle-management job and endured his first heart attack at age 44. McKee pens an homage to his father's way of life, with its dutifulness and web of family and community ties, but also a critique of its toll. Reacting against his father's apparent surrender, the author turns his life into a rebellion against the inevitability of heart attack. He eschewed a workaholic career for the creative life and maintained a fanatical fitness regimen—running, rowing, triathlons, all manner of health food diets and nutritional supplements—only to learn in middle age that cardiovascular disease had caught up with him. McKee includes illuminating medical lore about heart attacks and oral histories from survivors. But most of all, he discovers in the most ordinary way to die a perspective on how to live. (Feb. 1)
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Review

Metapsychology Online
“It is a source of encouragement for others who have heart problems and it is a reader for those who know what it is to lose their dad when they are so young. It is also a testimony to the agony children, even adult children must live with in order to justify, accept and forgive their parents addictions.”

Tucson Citizen, 2/26/09
“In this remarkable account, a son explores who his father really was and in the process finds himself. This is personal reporting that is both crisp and honest.”

 

Psychiatric Services, August 2010

“Readers who enjoy this book might consider recommending it topatients who have cardiovascular disease or who have loved oneswho do.”

 

MediZine’s Healthy Living, Fall 2010

“a lovely book”

 

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 336 pages
• Publisher: Da Capo Press; 1st Da Capo Press Ed edition (January 23, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0738210978
• ISBN-13: 978-0738210971
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 6.4 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,374,378 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars RICK "SHAQ" GOLDSTEIN SAYS: "WITHOUT A LIFE TOGETHER FORWARD... A SON LOOKS BACK AT HIS FATHER'S LIFE.", February 23, 2008

By 

Rick Shaq Goldstein "*SHAQ*" (Danville, Ca, USA) - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: My Father's Heart: A Son's Journey (Hardcover)

On September 30, 1969 the author Steve McKee was sixteen years old and was just settling into his favorite chair to watch TV with his fifty year old Father John. The rest of the family was out for the evening so it was just Father and son. They were just starting to watch the second ever episode of "MARCUS WELBY M.D." when Steve; "heard it before he saw it. The sound of air being pulled through tightly clenched teeth. By the time he turned to look at his Dad he had heard it twice. His Dad's eyes were wide open, his brows pushed up onto his forehead, his lips pulled wide across his mouth in a leering, maniacal grin. He looked like the pictures Steve had seen of astronauts' faces on the rocket sled, their faces yanked back by the G-force. With every gasp his back slammed into the couch and stayed there, stuck to it, as if there were someone or something behind the couch holding on to him." There is much more agonizing description, gut wrenchingly replayed about the moment when John McKee died of a heart attack in front of his son at the age of fifty. I will leave the rest of the horrific event to future readers of this book. But this moment in time is where this story starts.

This book is built around a number of topics that are of great consequence. There are many stories in print or on TV and in the movies, where children wail against a Father they never knew, or a Father that deserted them. But in the midst of the centerpiece of sadness that this son's story is built around, is an uplifting love that was lived and shared, albeit taken away too soon. The son celebrates his loving family and neighborhood friends his family had, but also made a personal pledge that he would not make the "THREE BIG MISTAKES" his Father made. His Grandfather died at fifty three from a heart attack. His Uncle Ed died of a coronary thrombosis at age forty three, his Uncle Frank died of an acute coronary at age fifty. Yet despite the clear warning of the "disease" that ran in the family, John McKee smoked three packs of cigarettes a day. One of the most poignant examples of Steve's crystallizing his Dad's smoking problem was his flashback to one of the great joys of his childhood, fishing with his Dad. One of the most important things a Father teaches a son about fishing is patience. Let the bait stay there for awhile. So when they would fish they would wait to catch a "CIGARETTE FISH." It upset the author to have to give cigarettes a starring role in his fishing story, but they deserved it. "It took Dad about seven minutes to smoke a cigarette. He timed it. At Muddy Creek, in this favored spot, seven minutes was also about the time it took for our bait to travel counterclockwise through the entire pool, so long as it didn't get hung up on the branches. Waiting for one cigarette to get smoked forced patience, especially on me. You don't want to pull the worm out of the fish's mouth. It also provided Dad the opportunity to smoke a cigarette, not that he needed one. Dad inhaled three packs a day, a sixty count. At seven minutes each, that's seven hours of smoking a day. Subtract seven hours for sleep, and Dad spent 40 percent of his life with a cigarette. "MISTAKE ONE:" Steve promised himself he would never smoke. Even though the promise of heart problems hung on his Father like leaves on the family tree, John never did the "road work" as he called physical exercise. "MISTAKE TWO:" Steve ran track, played basketball, ran marathons, rowed stationary boats. "MISTAKE THREE:" John was under constant stress at a corporate job that he never liked and the more stressed he became the more he smoked. Steve did volunteer work, got into writing, etc. things he enjoyed.

During the introduction portion of the story, the author says that he went back to school eight days after the funeral. He said he would tell his story starting with that eighth day and work back to his Father's death. As he discusses relatives or friends during each segregated day, he cleverly flashes back in time, and tells entire detailed histories of people and cities, and at times the stories lose some traction in the emotional tale being woven. Throughout the entire story the author is totally self- effacing and keeps his Father on a rightly deserved pedestal, but never lets the reader forget the statistical and emotional warnings to fighting heart disease. Being a Father and a Son myself, I couldn't imagine a better testament to the loving remembrance of a Father by a son including his fatal deficiencies.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars The Power of community, March 6, 2008

By 

Amy F. Hollister "Amy F. Hollister" (East Stroudsburg PA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: My Father's Heart: A Son's Journey (Hardcover)

This is an amazing story focusing on 2 themes as I see it. First, about the power of community. The community and the love it shared and poured out on its' people, had a huge impact on the author. Secondly, the struggle this author fought in coming to terms with the death of his father at a young age and its' impact on how he lived his life is an amazing story.

The author recounted many experiences where the "York Crowd" literally shaped his life and that of his family, is a testament to the value of caring for others and impacting another's life. It is the truest sense of caring for others, not only when the chips are down, but also when the going is good. In the world we live in today, where "meism" is paramount, it is a refresing look at the power of extending beyond oneself in the most basic aspects of life, to live a life full of joy and true servanthood to others simply because of the joy in it. There are no heroes here, just simple pouring out of oneselves because it is the right thing to do.

The struggle this author endured to come to terms with the "Preventable death" of his father in his eyes, is a lesson and a tale in humanity's struggle to not repeat mistakes. The author realizes in the end, after practically his life's journey(up until this point)that genetics are what they are. Yet, the ace in the hole is the journey that he took and it's own pleasures in coming to terms with his family's medical history. He never would have traveled the globe or gotten the lifetime opportunity to participate in an athletic event with his son that brought his experiences as a child around 360 degrees.

You may think this is a rather serious account of his life, yet it is peppered with humor that had me rolling on the floor(doesn't happen very often these days) simply because I could whole heartedly relate to some of the humorous stories. It is a must read, a little slow at first if you are not interrested in the history of 2 geographic regions, but stick with it because it was a page turner for me. Thoroughly enjoyed the book and it's impact has already encouraged me to value true community and caring for others. I may even attempt to be a bit more patient with my own children in trying situations to display unconditional love. John McKee's patience with his son(the author) in his bed wetting experiences is an incredible display of love.

5.0 out of 5 stars An engaging and informative memoir, December 29, 2008

By 

Barry Sparks "freelance writer" (York, PA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: My Father's Heart: A Son's Journey (Hardcover)

Author Steve McKee's father died from a heart attack in 1969 when he was 50 years old. His father, John, was a lifelong smoker with a stress-filled job. Steve had tried to get his father to quit smoking and change his lifestyle, but to no avail. Sixteen at the time of his father's death, Steve vowed to avoid his father's bad habits. He never smoked, exercised religiously and tried to avoid job-induced stress. Yet, as age 52, he found out that he had cardiovascular disease.

My Father's Heart is "the story of one father, one son and one family." It is the story of a son's journey to get to know his father better and to better understand himself.

"I have become who I am because of Dad, because of that night," writes McKee, who was alone with his father at home when he suffered the fatal heart attack.

McKee tells the story starting with the first day he returned to school after his father's death and concluding with the day his father died, a week earlier.

McKee does an excellent job of sharing memories of his father, detailing family history, interspersing information about cardiovascular disease, and discussing growing up in the late 1960s and early 1970s. It's a memoir worth reading.