Table of Contents
Acknowledgments ix
Introduction: The Child's Book of Parental Deception 1
1 Faith-Changing for Life 17
The Wounds of Memory: Shame and Discovery in the Kurzem Family 19
Into the Belly of the Beast: Counterfeiting Identity for Survival 33
Probing Secret Conversions: Helen Fremont's Anguished Inquisition 43
2 Deciphering Enigma Codes 54
Shadowing the Furtive Father Beyond the Grave: Mary Gordon's Ambivalent Inquiry 56
"Love Is No Detective": Germaine Greer's Guilty Hunt 65
Family on the Lam: A Son Running After Secrets 74
A Scavenger in the Archives: The "Memory Boy" Tracks His Parents 83
The Naked Lady's Face and the Detective's Effacement 91
3 The Men Who Were Not There 99
Sleuthing Amidst the Shards of the Past: Tracking Absence in the Austers 101
The Letters and the Flag: Recuperating a Lost Father 110
Speaking Him into the World: A Daughter Reenters Her Father's History 119
A Father Gone Missing: Documenting a Broken Bond 128
4 Becoming One's Parent 137
The Limits of Privacy: Decorum and Exposure at the Ackerleys 139
"Lies Like Contagious Diseases": The Secrets of the Duke and His Son 147
Imagining Himself in the Paternal Matrix 155
Shared Secrets in the Fun House 161
5 Breaking the Silence 174
Race, Secrecy, and Discovery: Black on White, White on Black 176
Conclusion: Freedom or Exploitation? 186
Bibliography 189
Index 195