“Rachel Silber Devlin’s fine portrait of her father is filled with such illuminating private detail, with stories that would have been unavailable to anyone who had not been there for all of those years—anyone who was not John Silber’s child. Her rendering has a transcendent objectivity and clarity and understanding that could only come from having known him as she did. Here are the Texas roots, the antecedents—the cultural and family background, the accumulation of intimate and accidental details, the stories.” ~ LANCE MORROW, from the Foreword
Snapshots of My Father is an extensively illustrated memoir of John Silber, who entirely transformed Boston University as its president and was a controversial, yet intellectually formidable, candidate for governor of Massachusetts. In this book, Rachel Silber Devlin looks at her family and her father’s trajectory from Texas to Boston and what life became like there; she examines his personality and temperament; and she describes his later years, the hardships he weathered and his continued accomplishments out of the public eye.
Devlin chose to tell her father’s story because John Silber, the man, is so widely misunderstood. People who knew him either loved him or hated him. None were indifferent. This memoir is in no way a full biography of Silber’s life. That would require several volumes. As the title implies, each chapter is like a snapshot taken from a daughter’s perspective, peering into the past she saw.
Silber championed freedom of speech, believing all sides should be heard, especially on college campuses. He was also the father of seven children, and the author often meets people who want to hear what he was like as a father and they like to tell her their own stories about him. Snapshots of My Father is her clear-eyed vision of this authentic man of principle who had a drive to achieve great things.
Review
Impressively illustrated with inserts of historical black-and-white photographs, “Snapshots of My Father, John Silber” by Rachel Silber Devlin is a deftly crafted and inherently interesting memoir showcasing a daughter’s account of her distinguished father. While also available for personal reading lists in a digital book format (Kindle, $9.99), “Snapshots of My Father, John Silber” is a welcome and recommended addition to community and academic library American Biography/Memoir collections. —Midwest Book Review
About the Author
Author Rachel Silber Devlin is one of John Silber’s six daughters. As a wife, a mother, and a homemaker, she always had a strong sense of who she was apart from any labels.
Devlin says that she sometimes feels like she and her dad grew up together because she knew him so well from a time when he was young and still learning how to make his way in the world.
She divides her time between her homes in Texas and Massachusetts, the states where her children and grandchildren live.
