The Man of Many Fathers: Life Lessons Disguised as a Memoir is stand-up comic and former Daily Show correspondent Roy Wood Jr.'s wonderfully wry look at the men who shaped him, often by filling the void his father left even while the two were living under one roof.
Wood, who was born in 1978, was initially raised in Memphis by his mother; his parents split up in 1979 but never divorced. One summer, Wood's mother informed him that they were moving to Birmingham to live with his dad, pioneering Black radio entrepreneur Roy Wood Sr.: she wanted her son to have a father. As it played out, Roy Sr. spent most of his time working or off with his new family, so Roy Jr. cast a wide net for role models. He eventually learned lessons from an ex-con, men he worked with at a restaurant, and so on, intuiting that wisdom can be found in unlikely places.
This resourcefulness helped Wood as he made his way in the comedy world, and his account of his gradual rise is candid, demystifying, and, of course, funny. Still, he keeps returning to the subject of Roy Sr. and the man's generationally specific outlook on life: "My father was from an era of Black men who thought if you simply paid all the bills in the house, then that justified any other behavior." Wood frequently addresses The Man of Many Fathers to his own son--insurance that the boy won't lack for fatherly guidance. --Nell Beram, author and freelance writer