Crisis, Pursued by Disaster, Followed Closely by Catastrophe (2007)

''Guess what! We're moving to Mexico!'' Or California. Or Texas. Or back to Mexico. Throughout his boyhood, Mike O'Connor's father announced that the family of five was leaving town. They'd stuff clothes in grocery bags and pile into the Chevy for a new chapter in their peripatetic life. In the first half of his absorbing memoir, Crisis, Pursued by Disaster, Followed Closely by Catastrophe, O'Connor describes growing up on the lam with his secretive parents. In the second, he chronicles his adult quest to crack those secrets. The answers he finds are worth the wait, though it's a long one for both the painstaking author and, at times, the reader. B