The Boy He Left Behind: A Man’s Search for His Lost Father

A sensitive meditation on death, family and masculinity that asks hard questions about a culture without fathers -Out

I was four years old when my father came back to kidnap me, begins this gripping memoir about Matousek’s search for James Matousek, the drifter father he never knew. Matousek chronicles his compelling search for his own father by hiring a detective and reveals his own life as he follows the hard-bitten investigator from one dead-end to the next search

Described by the New York Times as
part reminiscence, part detective story, part spiritual musing, this memoir is more than the story of one man’s search for his father; it is also a look at the meaning of life and how fathers contribute to that meaning.