Cathartic therapy

Hugging My Father’s Ghost with Zack Rogow

New Thinking AllowedOct 30, 2026

Poet and playwright Zack Rogow joins his cousin Jeffrey Mishlove to discuss his memoir 'Hugging My Father's Ghost,' in which he writes imagined dialogues with his father, author Lee Rogow, who died in a 1955 plane crash. Rogow calls the process a kind of literary after-death communication and does not claim it was genuine mediumship, but he says his father's wisecracking personality seemed to come through vividly. The conversation also uncovers family secrets, including a partner swap between two couples, a near-identical plane crash fate, and Lee's hidden role as inspiration for the hero of Herman Wouk's 'The Caine Mutiny.'