JR Moehringer/J.R. Moehringer

Moehringer is the author and narrator of the memoir. He grew up in the care of his mother Dorothy. His father was John Joseph Moehringer, Sr., known as disc jockey Johnny Michaels. As a child, Moehringer knew him only as a voice on the radio. He spent time with Johnny only a couple of times with poor experiences. Moehringer spent much of his childhood in his maternal grandparents' home, which was usually noisy, crowded, and chaotic. He and his mother moved to Arizona when Moehringer was a preteen, and they remained there until Moehringer returned east to attend Yale.

Moehringer's name was a source of concern for him because he shared the name with his father, a man he equally longed for and despised. At one point, he planned to legally change his name in order to eliminate that connection. When he graduated...