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

"I was conceived on a bathroom floor by a woman trying to forget herself and a man who materialized out of nowhere," Mark Matousek tells us. His father soon dematerialized, turning up for the last time in 1961 to make an unsuccessful attempt to kidnap 4-year-old Mark. Thirty-five years later, now HIV-positive, Matousek decides to hire a detective to look for the man he never knew. His compassionate, startlingly funny memoir mingles the tale of that quest with recollections of his troubled youth, a reconstruction of his parents' early lives and his mother's 14-year affair with a married man, tender portraits of his three sisters, and a loving depiction of his new boyfriend, Louis, whose support helps Matousek grapple with his past. Hilarious character sketches of everyone from the oddball private eye to a slick Manhattan magazine editor lighten the dark shadows cast by many of Matousek's memories, including one sister's suicide and his mother's admission that "I should never have had you kids." In Matousek's complex rendering of the world, there are no easy epiphanies or shortcuts to wisdom--which will come as no surprise to readers of his previous book, Sex Death Enlightenment. But there are sturdy friendships, hard-won courage, and the hope of lasting love. --Wendy Smith

Mark Matousek has written for Details, Harper's Bazaar, The Village Voice, Common Boundary, Poz, Utne Reader, and many other publications. A former senior editor of Interview magazine, he has contributed essays to numerous anthologies. He is the author of Sex Death Englightenment, which was nominated for two Books for a Better Life awards. Matousek divides his time between New York City and East Hampton, New York.