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

"Mark Matousek has produced [a] riveting account of his search-at age 38, with the help of a private detective–for the father who abandoned him at age four. A searing meditation on the psychic harm suffered by men and women without fathers, this wise odyssey wrestles with questions of life and death and the search for the meaning of one's existence." -Publishers Weekly (Starred Review)

“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.

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.