My Father's Son - Davis, John

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Résumé :
Every family has secrets. Ours were just bigger than others. My earliest memory is of a gun. That gun was in his father's hand - and it was pointed at his mother's head. John Davis grew up in the 1970s and '80s on the rough streets of Brooklyn, a place where no one thought twice when parents smacked around their kids-or each other. At the center of the tumultuous neighborhood, and John's world, was his larger-than-life father, Roberto. The Argentinean butcher and kingpin drug dealer was a sadistic bully whose mercurial temper left a trail of tears and chaos across his family. John, in particular, seemed to bear the brunt of Roberto's wildly swinging moods. Any wrong word could cause an explosion. Every knock on the door might be one of Roberto's enemies, or the police. In his publishing debut, Davis recounts how he spent his childhood in constant terror and his teen years learning to fight back. But it was much later, as an adult, that he learned the most shocking thing of all about his father, his past, and himself. Told with raw honesty and deep emotion, My Father's Son is a memoir of fear, abuse, survival, and identity.

Biographie:
John Davis is the Managing Partner at The Cramer Institute. John is a sought-after executive coach, workshop facilitator and corporate consultant. He is especially skillful in moving individuals and groups to new levels of performance and effectiveness, particularly during times that require organizational change and transformation. With leaders, John's coaching targets excellence in self-awareness, communication, influence, team building, and conflict resolution skills.In addition, John designs and leads training for The Cramer Institute on mindset management using Asset-Based Thinking? (ABT), Lead Positive? coaching and workshops for individual and team leadership development, as well as ABT communication, through Power & Presence coaching. John joined The Cramer Institute in 2006 after a distinguished 31-year career in manufacturing operations, strategic planning, change management, and organizational development. In his community work, John contributes his one-on-one coaching and group leadership by serving on training staffs for the Mankind Project (MKP), an international non-profit organization for men focused on personal growth and leadership development.John has served as an adjunct staff member for the Center of Creative Arts (COCA) in St. Louis, where he facilitated workshops for the COCAbiz programs, bringing an experience of the arts into organizations to foster creativity and innovation. John also works with other non-profit organizations and with College Bound in St. Louis helping youth and young adults develop as leaders. John holds Bachelor's and Master's degrees in Mechanical Engineering from Oklahoma State University and an MBA from Southern Illinois University.

Sommaire:
This book was very well-written in a secular and individual way. It gives a very realistic account of the day to day experience and some of the transitions that the soldiers endured between arrival, the Bulge Offensive, the thawing out and the Siegfried Line experience in 1945. It was a slog and everyday chipped at one's armor. The steadily encroaching realization that something bad or unlucky could happen accelerated as the offensive ebbed and snow thawed but the dangers (and mines/artillery) were still omnipresent. Some of the thoughts about critical enduring friendships (with his friend Archie) and those small but key facets that may have kept a man sane and capable of enduring one are well-described....