While going through our father’s files after the funeral, Sam finds stunning information about Dad’s ancestry that bounces crazily off of our mother’s. But Dad had altered his legacy. Also, his overt appreciation of my daughters has a healing e

Bonus Episode: A Preface To Revelation

Mar 28th, 2019 11m 23s

Dad's presence would be more keenly felt after the revelations that followed his funeral...

9. The Ice Storm

Mar 25th, 2019 32m 32s

I regret missing Woodstock, and resolve to tune in, turn on and drop out. Soon, all but one of us have left or been expelled from school. Dad melts down, then rebounds and moves his family to New York, marking the end of our childhood.

Bonus Story: Drug Reboot

Mar 21st, 2019 6m 56s

You really want to smoke pot? It's strong as f**k these days!

8. Strange Land

Mar 18th, 2019 32m 9s

Just as Papa Harper dies of alcoholism, Dad gets promoted and moves his reluctant family to the east coast. Billy and Diana and I go to college, seeking sex, drugs and rock ‘n roll, while the younger three are miserable in their new home.Just a

Bonus Story: What We Wore

Mar 14th, 2019 5m 15s

You could just hear their golf clubs rattle as their parents realized their daughters were sleeping with hippies.

7. Faith

Mar 11th, 2019 30m 22s

JFK’s assassination in ‘62 marks a sea change. I lose faith, while big sister Diana finds it, and marches for civil rights. My brothers commit a string of petty crimes, and Billy becomes the first to push back against Dad’s anger.

Bonus Story: Dancing School

Mar 7th, 2019 5m 17s

I had crossed a threshold, and Mom was on the other side.

6. Survival

Mar 4th, 2019 28m 57s

By 1962, my little brothers emulate their father’s work ethic while they fear his unpredictable rages. But the Cuban Missile Crisis makes us aware of greater dangers in the world outside our home.

Bonus Story: Colorado

Feb 28th, 2019 6m 49s

As was customary in our family, I opted out of confrontation in favor of the harbor-resentment-for-life plan.

5. The Grandfather Report

Feb 25th, 2019 38m 38s

Mom comes from a long line of ministers, and the goodness persists in the Emery family. The actions of Dad’s father, Papa Harper, also echo those of his forebears, but goodness has nothing to do with it.

Bonus Story: Love and Crime

Feb 21st, 2019 6m 43s

“I got interested in boys then. Not so much for romance as for a Billy surrogate, when he was out raising hell."

4. Winnetka

Feb 18th, 2019 34m 15s

In ‘56, we settle in Winnetka. When, in July, Mom gives birth to twin baby boys, Dad’s temper rises like the temperature does. But he keeps us in his thrall with signs of love.

Bonus Story: Housework

Feb 14th, 2019 5m 51s

“The trouble with being a stay-at-home mom, wasn’t that the work was so hard, but that it was so unvalued.”

3. Wishing

1 Feb 11th, 2019 33m 6s

My twin brother Billy and I are close pals. In spite of our fear of our angry father, we each wish he would shine his love light on us. The arrival of an adorable baby sister does not help our cause.

2. Mom and Dad

Feb 7th, 2019 30m 11s

A Marine (Dad) and a nightclub singer (Mom) are married in 1946. By 1950 they live in a Chicago suburb with three babies. Dad starts his career in advertising, while my mother struggles with being a stay-at-home mom. Dad shows an unexpected ang

Bonus Story: The Joke

Feb 4th, 2019 5m 19s

“Memory is tricky after all. It can morph over time, and events get reimagined.”

1. Introduction

Feb 4th, 2019 14m 47s

My family and I attend Dad’s funeral in ’13. As I listen to my siblings’ eulogies that extol his virtues, I note how our memories of childhood differ. But what we’ll all discover some days later is an awful piece of our history that none of us

Trailer: The Unexpected

Jan 28th, 2019 3m 37s

WINNETKA is a ten-episode memoir by actress Jessica Harper. She narrates her story of growing up in the fifties and sixties in a six-kid household in Winnetka, Illinois. You might expect a tale of an idyllic childhood. But when you meet the Har