Another Way Home: A Single Father's Story

This beautifully written and haunting memoir by novelist Thorndike (Anna Delaney's Child) primarily deals with how he raised his son without a partner. In 1967, when Thorndike was a 24-year-old Peace Corps worker in El Salvador, he met and married 19-year-old Clarissa. She drifted away from him emotionally after the birth of their son, Janir, and soon began exhibiting dangerous schizophrenic behavior. With Janir's welfare foremost in his mind, Thorndike returned to the U.S. with his son and bought a farm in Ohio. Although this account of Janir's childhood is filled with moments of joy between father and son, Thorndike makes clear that hard work and loneliness are often the lot of a single parent. Not wishing to deprive Janir of a mother, he encouraged Clarissa's visits, but their reunions were never free from his former wife's destructive behavior. The author's heartbreaking concern for Clarissa and strong love and commitment to his son, who is now a grown man, shines through this bittersweet story. (May)