Synopsis

Weaving the author’s coming of age in 1980s New York with his life as a father today, this Nick Hornby–meets–Cheryl Strayed debut memoir examines father-son relationships, the pain of early parent loss, and the importance of embracing your passions.

For nearly fifteen years, Matt Fogelson didn’t recognize how deeply the early death of his workaholic father had affected him. Then he had a son of his own and the floodgates opened, helping him realize that even deeper than the wound left by his father’s death were the wounds inflicted by his absence while alive.

Restrung follows Fogelson from his beginnings as a music-loving kid combing through vinyl in Greenwich Village, through his struggles to overcome his grief during young adulthood, and into becoming a man who is startled by the reemergence of his long-suppressed passion for music after becoming a father. Told with humor, grief, and hope, it’s the story of a passionate music lover’s effort to break free of the real and imagined constraints standing between him and his best life—an effort that ultimately allows Fogelson’s son to know his father in a way Fogelson never knew his.

Funny and deeply honest, Restrung is a balm for every father and son fortunate enough to still have each other in their lives. It will inspire readers to try to cross the emotional gulf that seems almost endemic to the father-son relationship and finally break through to one another.

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Excerpt

PRESENCE OF AN ABSENCE

One of the best things about visiting my dad in his skyscraper office on Park Avenue was riding in the high-speed elevator. It was like being an astronaut in a rocket ship, the way that thing took off, my ears popping all the way to the forty-eighth floor.
When the ride was over, I’d stumble out of the elevator, feeling a little woozy from it, and also like I’d arrived on a different planet, one made of dark wood and glass doors, inhabited by men in dark suits and brightly colored ties, all of them wearing glasses, their noses deep in shuffling papers as they marched down long hallways zombie-like. It was so quiet in there, the only sound being the electronic beep-beep of telephone lines ringing at the receptionist’s desk. I’d feel my stomach get all tight, look down at my white sneakers that weren’t that white anymore, and wonder if I should maybe take off. But the receptionist would always spy me standing there all still.

“Hello, sweetie, can I help you?”

“Um, I’m here to see my dad,” I’d whisper, not wanting to break the quiet of the place.

“Who’s your father, sweetie?”

That question always confused me some—it’d take me a second or two to figure out how to answer it. “Um, Mister Fogelson,” I’d finally say, the words sounding strange and somehow wrong.

“Okay, I’ll let Ruth know.”
Ruth was my dad’s long-time secretary. She’d take me through the

maze of the forty-eighth floor to my dad’s corner office. “Matthew, darling, look at you, you’ve gotten so big,” she’d say to me. “You want to make a quick pit stop in the kitchen?”

The answer to that question was always yes. The kitchen area of my dad’s office was like something out of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. It had anything a kid could want. Refrigerators filled with sodas, cabinets filled with M&Ms and other candy. All free for the taking. No permission or money needed. Wow, I thought, I can’t wait to get a job! There were Welch’s grape sodas in the fridge, which were my favorite, but I’d grab a Schweppes ginger ale since ginger ale seemed more like what you were supposed to drink in an office. I’d also take a packet of peanut M&M’s and a Twix bar to save for later.

Ruth would lead me through corridor after corridor, past the xerox room and law library, finally leaving me in front of my dad’s office with those strange words, “Mr. Fogelson,” engraved in silver on the closed door. Ruth would knock and open the door all in the same motion, not waiting for permission to enter—like I did when I knocked on his study door at home. My dad would be talking on the phone, his back to the door, staring out the glass wall behind his desk.

“I can wait out here until he’s off the phone,” I’d tell Ruth.

“Don’t be silly, darling. Your father wouldn’t want you standing in the hallway. Anyway, it could be a while, so you might as well get comfortable.”

When he noticed the door open, my dad would turn around, smile, and wave me in. I’d take a seat on his large leather couch and listen to him on the phone. He’d be saying nonsense words, words like “equity financing,” “fiduciary,” “illiquidity,” “proxy,” “undercapitalization,” and “poison pill.” It was all pretty boring, except the poison pill bit— that sounded sort of cool, like maybe my dad was involved in some type of shadowy Dungeons & Dragons situation. When I got bored enough, I’d stand up and walk over to one of the two glass walls, put my face up against it and stare down at the street below. The people looked like ants from so high up and the yellow taxis looked like the matchbox cars my mom would buy me at the stationery store on Madison and 76th when I was really small.

When I got bored with staring down at the street, I’d sit back down on the couch, rip open the packet of peanut M&Ms and check out the magazines my dad kept on his coffee table. A couple had pictures of him on the cover, with headlines saying something about M&A transactions—whatever those were—and my dad being the future leader of the legal profession. That’s pretty cool, I thought. Not as cool as being on the cover of Sports Illustrated, but still, pretty cool.

Eventually my dad would finish his call and turn to me.
“I’m not so sure about eating candy right before lunch,” he’d say. “But since you’ve got them open already, how about some for your old man?” I’d hand over a few and he’d give me a wink. “So where do you want to go for lunch?”

My answer was always the same: “How about Brew Burger?” I liked Brew Burger because they had red vinyl-covered stools up at the counter that swung all the way around like tops. My dad would let me take a spin or two before telling me to knock it off and look at the menu. Not that I needed to look at the menu. I always ordered the same thing: a cheeseburger and vanilla milkshake. The cheese came out all liquid-y, like it wasn’t even cheese. I loved that. Eventually my dad stopped taking me to Brew Burger. He said his doctor told him eating burgers and milkshakes wasn’t good for him. Something about cholesterol. So we’d go to Oscar’s, a restaurant in this fancy hotel, the Waldorf-Astoria it was called, which I didn’t like nearly as much. It had white tablecloths, no fancy spinning stools, and the menu was written in a foreign language—escargots, tartare, confit. Plus, a lot of my dad’s law partners seemed to go there for lunch. He was always introducing me to people at Oscar’s, which required me to make eye contact with them. I hated that.

“Brew Burger it is, then,” my dad would say. “Let’s get out of here.” But then his phone would always seem to ring at least once more and he’d race to answer it, even if we’d made it into the hallway. Or one of his law partners would stop in just as we were leaving and ask him a question and then sit down for ten minutes, the two of them exchanging more nonsense words. I didn’t really mind, though, since I figured it gave me permission to go ahead and eat my Twix bar.

When we finally made it over to that high-speed elevator, I’d jump up just as it began descending, the floor falling out beneath me like the Freefall ride at the Great Adventure amusement park in New Jersey. My dad would shoot me a stern look if somebody else was in the elevator, but he never told me I had to stop doing it.

Meeting my dad at his office for lunch was the best. He seemed happy and relaxed at his office, always smiling and in a good mood.

When he was home, my mom was always yelling at him, taking out her frustration at his working all the time and leaving her alone with Rob and me. Even when he wasn’t home, she’d be yelling at him— over the phone. “Tell them to give the work to Bob Kramer!” she’d scream when my dad said he couldn’t make it home for dinner. “He sits around all day doing nothing!” Mr. Kramer was one of my dad’s law partners—my dad introduced me to him a few times at the office.

He always seemed plenty busy to me, but maybe my mom knew different. She seemed real sure about it, anyway.

So yeah, my dad worked lots, which was kind of a bummer, but that’s because he was an important lawyer and important lawyers work a ton. My mom said that when Rob was born, she and my dad hired a baby nurse who told my mom she didn’t believe my dad was staying so late at the office every night, that he was probably visiting a friend after work. “Go ahead and call his office,” the nurse told my mom once at one in the morning. My mom did and of course my dad picked up on the first ring. “Well, I’ll be,” said the nurse. But I wasn’t surprised to hear it. His work was super critical—not that I knew what it was exactly.

I worried a lot that my dad would get sick of my mom always yelling at him and just take off. Some of my friends’ dads had done that. “Can’t you just let him be?” I’d ask my mom. “It’s not like he wants to work until midnight every night.” But I’d also try to get my dad to spend more time with us since that seemed like the other way to solve the problem. I often did this thing where instead of giving my dad birthday cards, I’d write him poems. When I was ten years old, I wrote him one for his thirty-eighth birthday which included this verse:

Jim: let me give it to you straight
You can’t keep working so late
Your wife and children get annoyed
And when Phylis gets mad it’s terribly bad

About the Author

Matt Fogelson is a writer and former lawyer whose true passion is music, primarily of the classic rock variety. His Substack, Fine Tuning, blends personal storytelling with a love for the music that makes sense of life, centering on new artists and the intersection of music and parenting. His work has appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, Scary Mommy, and NPR. Matt resides in Oakland, California.

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