The American: A Memoir

On June 6, 1944, Frederick Giesbert, assigned to the American army’s 29th division, landed on bloody Omaha Beach, Normandy, an experience from which he never recovered. Three years later, Frederick had returned to his hometown of Chicago, married to a French girl. But when the seemingly happy couple moved to Normandy to make a home with their baby, something in Frederick snapped, and he turned cruel and violent. His son, Franz-Oliver, spent his childhood doing everything he could to defy his father. The American is a son’s fiercely honest and emotionally gripping story of a search for paternal understanding and forgiveness.