In his book, In the Middle of Things / A Fragmented Coming-of-Age Memoir, Vince Puzick explores his relationship with his father, an emotionally distant and physically absent figure for most of Puzick’s life. His father first left when Vince was 12, surfacing unpredictably for the next five years.

After Vince turned 17, he had no contact with his father for five more years. During that time, Puzick quit college twice, worked in two different factories, and struggled to find his own path, shape his own story.

Vince examines his distant relationship with his father through different lenses: the unpredictability of chaos theory; the chronological unfolding of events; a self-help book called Psycho-Cybernetics, popular in the early and mid-1960s; family dynamics theory; and even through a literary lens. As he takes steps to understand his father, Vince also traces the path of his own coming-of-age.

Different, and unlikely, voices influenced decisions he faced on his path: a Vietnam veteran, poets Adrienne Rich and Yusef Komunyakaa, the work of Virginia Satir, and a Silicon Valley attorney named Bill Fenwick. These people and the myriad experiences along the way force Vince to consider, and reconsider, the factors that shaped his early life with and without his father's presence.

Although the book is primarily a father-son story, that relationship doesn't happen in a vacuum. As time lengthens and the distance between them increases, as opportunities to connect in any meaningful ways disappear, Puzick explores family and inheritance; alcoholism as a family dynamic; the world of work; and the journey through loss, grief, and fragmentation to wholeness, sobriety, and forgiveness.

In what he describes as a process of accumulation and letting go, Vince ultimately shapes his own life's story. In pondering the question, "how do we come to know our parents," he comes to a deeper understanding of himself.

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