Into That Good Night

Rozelle splices together two eras in a potentially tricky structure that ultimately yields a spare, beautifully written memoir about fatherhood, bravery, memory and one man in particular. His recollection of his childhood in a small east Texas town also reconstructs his father, Lester, a once vigorous, strong-willed man whose own memory was decimated by Alzheimer's. Other sections from the early 1990s compare Rozelle's still-new experiences of paternity with his evolving relationship with his own father. When Rozelle, a high school English teacher, was growing up in Oakwood in the 1950s and '60s, Lester was the school superintendent of the ""white"" school, where he formerly taught, as well as of the town's ""black"" school. While Rozelle offers many details of life in a small Southern town, this is not an exercise in nostalgia. Lester was an upright man who publicly supported the Supreme Court decision that mandated school integration. That same quiet strength helped Rozelle deal with the death of his mother, who committed suicide after she was unsuccessfully treated for cancer. The author's skillful and compassionate writing brings both the father of his childhood and the man who could not remember the names of his own children to life. Lester died of a stroke in 1992, but this serves, as his son intended, as a moving tribute. (Aug.)