cover image A Cry of Absence

A Cry of Absence

Andrew Ward. Viking Books, $18.95 (24pp) ISBN 978-0-670-82217-1

This is a self-serving tale of the trauma experienced by Thomas Osborne (not his real name) in reclaiming his children, who were abducted by his ex-wife. Writing a first-person narrative, Ward (Fits and Starts) begins with the father's middle-class, emotionally deprived upbringing in Philadelphia, his post-college trek of self-discovery to Puget Sound and an academic career, his marriage to Barbara, mother of one child. The birth of his own two children evoked in Osborne a nascent need to nurture, we're told, and when he divorced he was granted custody of six-year-old Ben and five-year-old Sara. Barbara, however, spirited them to Israel. We read of Osborne's frustration in recovering them, of the indifference of officialdompolice, federal attorneys and agentsto his plight. Nonetheless, it's a story with a more-or-less happy ending: the children are with him again, and the remarried Osborne allows their mother visitation rights. (July)