Life, Death And Bialys (Hardcover) by Schaffer, Dylan

A mystery writer and his strange (and estranged) father bake their way to truth, reconciliation, and forgiveness.

In 2002, Flip Schaffer asked his son to join him in an intensive bread class at a fancy culinary school in New York. At first, the idea seemed considerably less than half-baked. The two hadn't spent much time together--not since Flip left Dylan and his siblings in the care of their crazy mother thirty years before. Neither knew the first thing about making bread. And Flip's end-stage lung cancer was expected to kill him long before the class began.

But Flip made it. The two spent seven days at the French Culinary Institute becoming artisanal bakers and seven tumultuous nights in a shabby Bowery hotel getting to know each other. And to their mutual astonishment, just in time, they came something close to terms.