Assembling My Father: A Daughter's Detective Story

Anna Cypra Oliver’s strikingly original book offers both a moving story of self-discovery and a vivid record of a turbulent era. In the late 1960s, Anna’s father—a charismatic man from a cultivated Jewish background—and her equally urbane mother joined a countercultural enclave in Taos, New Mexico. There, amid the chaos of hippie life, their marriage foundered. Shortly after their breakup, Anna's father comitted suicide. Anna was five years old.

Twenty years later, the discovery of some old ...