"As a college student, Alvin Greenberg received a perplexing birthday card signed by aunts he couldn't recall. When he asked his mother about them the family secrets that had been trickling, unknown, beneath his existence begin to rise to the surface. The aunts, in fact, were the sisters of a biological mother he never knew, a mother who died giving birth to him. His father, rather than follow Orthodox Jewish tradition and marry her eldest unmarried sister, had severed all ties with his in-laws and remarried another woman who raised Greenberg as her own son.". "In The Dog Of Memory, Greenberg explores the many aspects of self-identity: familial, spiritual, social, and political. Examining his past through stories, music, literature, and a photo album full of empty slots, Greenberg attempts to navigate the intricacies of life that are the only answers we have to the question "Who am I?""--BOOK JACKET.