For the month of May, sandwiched between VE (Victory in Europe) day on May 8 and the anniversary of the D-Day landings on June 6, the Friends of the Jamaica Plain Branch Library welcome local author Philip Gambone to read from his memoir, As Far As I Can Tell : Finding My Father In World War II.

Philip Gambone's father, a soldier in the Fifth Armored Division that landed in Normandy in July 1944, left a handful of souvenir maps of the route the soldiers took when they fought across occupied Europe, from Utah Beach to the Elbe River. But that's all Phil heard about his father's participation in the war. He set out to learn more. In the context of being a gay man who was opposed to the Vietnam War, Phil writes of coming to know his father as a soldier on the battlefields of WWII.

The talk will be moderated by Marleen Nienhuis, a JP resident, who founded the Friends of the South End Library and organized its ongoing author series.