Two Fathers

What happens when a single son is shaped by two opposite masters?

Eduardo Kwiatkowski presents an intimate account of identity and heritage through the portraits of the two men who defined his life .

In the first part, Conspiranoia: The Man Who Was Right About Everything, we meet Emilio, the author's biological father . Born in Argentina to Ukrainian immigrants, Emilio grew up in a neighborhood where Spanish was a foreign language . Orphaned at the age of twelve, he developed a unique "engineering of survival": he was capable of chaining a car to a tree just to avoid turning off the engine, or studying a medical Vademecum to correct the doctors' prescriptions . For him, the world was a technical problem riddled with conspiracies that only his unshakeable logic could decode .

In the second part, My Dad / Adoptive Son: The Art of Mimetism and Resilience, Juan, the author's adoptive father, takes the stage . A master of persuasion and social "chameleonism," Juan could convince a colonel or a judge using nothing but the right tone of voice . However, following medical malpractice, Juan loses his short-term memory. At just twenty years old, the author must suddenly step into the role of father to his own guardian .

"Two Fathers" is a memoir about resilience and the art of finding explanations. Amidst sailboats hanging from ceilings and shoes stretched with cement molds, the author discovers that the best inheritance is not absolute certainty, but the tools to build one's own version of reality .