Compendium of the Confederate armies Book

It took me a long time to get into this book, and to finish it, but I finally did get into it, and finish it. Former U of Iowa Writers Program faculty member Blaise writes about his father, a philanderer, a liar, not warm or personable, not a talker, and he pieces together a life from scraps of memory and pieces of information gleaned from others here and there. His father left his mother and married several other times, and Blaise didn't even know if he had siblings, who many of his step-relatives were at all… but he remained obsessed all of his life with his Dad and roots, and how it is he became a writer when his Dad almost gave him no information… A good writer writes this book Blaise called post-modern because the narrative is so sparse, so fragmented, so doesn't add up to anything like a biography.. it's more autobiography/memoir of a son at 52 in search of his father, constructing him and himself in the process. I didn't love this book but like the idea of it, of this fragmented process, and getting to know Daddy, not Daddy dearest, but Daddy who he happened to get, kind of, as in maybe he didn't get much of a father, though they did connect at different times…. and powerfully. His other raised him; why doesn't he write about her, she deserves the tribute! But that isn't the point; his father was a mystery to him, an enigma. Finally, there's quite a few insights into writing and family and identity in it.