Black Dog of Fate: A Memoir.

Peter Balakian shares this firsthand account of growing up in a close, extended family, sheltered by 1950s and '60s New Jersey suburbia and immersed in an all-American boyhood defined by rock 'n' roll, adolescent pranks, and a passion for the New York Yankees. Beneath this exterior is the trauma his family and ancestors experienced--the Turkish government's genocide of more than a million Armenians in 1915, including many of Balakian's relatives. Black Dog of Fate charts Balakian's growth and personal awakening to the facts of his family's history and the aftermath of the Turkish government's campaign to cover up the genocide. In unearthing the secrets of a family's past and how they affect its present, this memoir gives fresh meaning to the story of what it means to be an American.