When Roy Wood Jr. held his baby boy for the first time, he was relieved that his son was happy and healthy, but he felt a strange mix of joy and apprehension. Roy’s own father, a voice of the civil rights movement in Birmingham, Alabama, had passed away when Roy was sixteen. There were gaps in the lessons passed down from father to son and, holding his own child, Roy wondered: Have I managed to fill in those blanks, to learn the lessons I will one day need to teach my boy?
So Roy looked back to figure out who had taught him lessons throughout his life and which he could pass down to his son. Some of his father figures were clear, like a colorful man from Philadelphia navigating life after prison, who taught Roy the value of having a vision for his life, or his fellow comedians, who showed him what it took to make it as a working stand-up performer. Others were less obvious, from the teenage friends who convinced him to race "leaf boats" carrying lit matches in the middle of a drought to a drug-addicted restaurant colleague who played hoops while Roy scoured dirty dishes to big names in Hollywood, like Trevor Noah and more.
The Man of Many Fathers by Roy Wood Jr. will be published October 28, 2025. Crown Publishing provided an early galley for review.
I got to know and enjoy Roy as the host of Have I Got News For You, a weekly comedy-headlines show on CNN. I like his sense of humor and timing, so I felt I too would enjoy a look into his life.
This was definitely an interesting approach to a memoir. His life story is a very interesting one. Though it has its moments of humor, it also gives the reader things to think about regarding their own lives and relationships with their parents and their children. At the stage of life I find myself in, I found this useful and oddly comforting.
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