Michael Hainey was only six when his uncle appeared at the door of their Chicago home, bearing the news that Hainey's father, Bob, an editor with the Chicago Tribune, had been found dead. But what never came clear – not that night, and not in the many years that followed – were the exact circumstances of Bob's death. He was found dead on the street "after visiting friends," read one obituary. But even as a child Michael knew that something was missing from the narrative.
As an adult – today deputy editor of GQ and living in New York – Michael decided it was time to find out. After Visiting Friends is the story of the investigation he launched into his father's past. Looking up old friends, checking out public records, and talking to anyone who might have been in a position to know, Michael takes a journey into the life of the father he had so little chance to get to know.
What emerges is not only the buried story of Bob Hainey's life and untimely death but also a well-drawn portrait of America in the 1960s, the newspaper profession as it was practiced at that time, and a snapshot of the city of Chicago itself. MIchael is his father's son – a good reporter – and the way that the story unfolds turns out to be at least as interesting as the long-suppressed truth itself.
