FBI Girl: How I Learned to Crack My Father's Code [Hardcover]

Conlon-McIvor was a Hoover-era FBI agent's daughter, and her diverting memoir tells her story from birth to adolescence while depicting her father as a man so taciturn that she became convinced his every word was code for something else. As a kid, determined to decipher his character and the other silences around her, the author cast herself in an ongoing dream life as a Nancy Drew–type agent. This made her somewhat withdrawn and silent herself, and at her Catholic school she became known as the shy girl. At home her mother and siblings livened things up, even though the condition of Joey, the youngest, born with Down's syndrome, made her father even more remote. Other relatives in the extended Irish-American family, especially Maura's New York uncle Father Jack, provided a sense of a larger world in a home where the picture of J. Edgar Hoover frowned down from the wall. When tragedy struck, playing at secret agent didn't help as it used to, and Conlon-McIvor finally grew into herself. She conveys her time (the 1960s) and setting (Los Angeles) with precision and detail; her feel for story, structure and understatement rightfully earns the poignancy of many moments.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Growing up Catholic in the 1960s, Conlon-McIvor's favorite religious figure was the Blessed Virgin Mary, and her favorite book character was Nancy Drew. Mysteries fascinated her, and no wonder; her father was an FBI agent, whose car trunk was filled with bullets. Her dream was to follow his path and crack "the code" that made his every glance and word so deliciously baffling. It took many years before Conlon-McIvor understood that her father's taciturn, moody behavior had little to do with his job; it grew from deep sadness and an inability to express emotion. In this touchingly honest memoir, always true to a child's point of view, the author remakes herself as the naive child and awkward teen she was, growing up in a family mostly held together by commitment to her youngest brother, born with Down syndrome. Memories of her long-suffering mother; her beloved uncle Father Jack; and, most of all, her father, whose "code" she finally cracks, blend beautifully in this occasionally funny, affecting account of family ties and personal growth. Stephanie Zvirin
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Young Maura Conlon's dad is a secret agent. And she knows what that means: chasing cars, jumping over buildings, handcuffing bad guys, just like on "The FBI," her favorite TV show. No matter how many times she asks her father about his work, he never says anything. So Maura decides to become an FBI girl-in-training. A heartwarming tale of a father/daughter relationship, this is about family bonds, the trials that test them, and the triumphs that make them stronger.

Maura Conlon-McIvor grew up practicing her Irish brogue while bodysurfing the waters of Orange County, California. From there she zipped off to the University of Iowa and became a freelance journalist interviewing Pulitizer-prize winning authors, National Geographic photographers, mountain climbers, pro sports players, national broadcasters, massage therapists, life coaches and anybody else with a unique story. She enjoyed a brief stint at The New Yorker and just the other day had lunch with her old boss at The Algonquin Hotel (great tuna sandwiches). Before writing FBI Girl: How I Learned to Crack My Father's Code, Maura worked in the visual effects film industry. "Special effects are amazing...but there's nothing that comes close to the magic literature evokes," she says. Maura Conlon-McIvor sculls on the Willamette River, and divides her time between Portland, Oregon and New York City. She is married to her husband, Andrew, whom she met on a train platform in Innsbruck, Austria eons ago.