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

Following his acclaimed memoir, Sex Death Enlightenment, Matousek has produced an equally 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 former senior editor of Interview magazine, Matousek grew up in suburban Los Angeles in the late 1950s and '60s. His mother struggled in poverty to raise three daughters and Mark, whom she defended against homophobic taunts while punishing him with silence and emotional distance for what she feared was his true sexual identity. Without a father, Matousek says, he felt unworthy, ""fundamentally unblessed, as a person and as a man."" He blames the absence of his father for the family's spinning out of control. Marcia, the author's half-sister, committed suicide at 29; Matousek finds evidence suggesting that their father sexually abused her. His other sisters suffered difficult relationships throughout their lives, while at 14 Matousek embarked on binges of petty crime, drugs and sex with other boys and girls, followed by years of nomadic spiritual wandering in Europe and India. There is no closure here--dad is never found--but at his mother's deathbed, Matousek's rage, longing, guilt and dread melt into acceptance and grief. In tandem with the private-eye manhunt, Matousek undergoes successful treatment for HIV infection. 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. (Mar.)