Sharon Harrigan’s father was larger than life, a brilliant but troubled man who blew off his hand with dynamite before she was born and died in a mysterious and bizarre accident when she was seven. The story of his death never made sense. How did he really die? And why was she so sure that asking would be dangerous? A series of events compel her to find the answers, collecting other people’s memories and uncovering her own. Her two-year odyssey takes her from Virginia to Detroit to Paris and finally to the wilds of northern Michigan where her father died. There, she discovers the real danger and has to confront her fear. Playing with Dynamite is about the family secrets that can distance us from each other and the honesty that can bring us closer. It’s about a daughter who goes looking for her father but finds her mother instead. It’s about memory and truth, grieving and growing, and what it means to go home again. "A warm, engaging read about the ways in which memory distorts our understanding of family"—Kirkus Reviews (starred review) "For much of her life, Sharon Harrigan's father was an idea, a concept, a myth. What happens when she finally allows him to be a real person, with real complications? Through frank and fiercely honest prose, Harrigan comes to realize that whatever remained unsolved would stay unsolved until she asked herself the right questions and discovered herself anew."—Debra Gwartney, author of Live Through This, finalist for the National Critics Circle Award "This memoir hit me in the gut and made me feel all kinds of complicated, lost in the wilderness of the human heart, but this much is clear: Sharon Harrigan writes with grace and unflinching honesty."—Benjamin Percy, author of The Dark Net "In Playing with Dynamite, Sharon Harrigan is, by turns, both Telemachus and Odysseus. Her story is both epic and intimate."—Nick Flynn, author of The Reenactments