Growing up on the streets of New York City in the 1940s and 1950s, the author of this autobiography was poor, Irish-Catholic and fatherless. According to his mother, who fought to keep her children on the right tracks, his father had a disability which required him to stay in hospital and have no visitors. By his early teens, he had become an angry rebel and was involved in crime. Just as he was about to spin out of control, he discovered the truth behind his father's absence, and consequently began a process of personal healing and spiritual renewal.