Blackburn, a writer and professor at the U. of Colorado, has written an affectionate memoir of life with his father, William Blackburn, a Duke University composition professor who mentored such students as William Styron and Reynolds Price. While Blackburn's depiction of his father is always admiring, it does not neglect the difficulties between father and son or Blackburn's struggles to become a writer in the context of the family legacy. Annotation ©2005 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR