Bureau of Missing Persons

Roger J. Porter is Professor of English at Reed College. He is the author most recently of Self-Same Songs: Autobiographical Performances and Reflections.

• Introduction: The Child's Book of Parental Deception1. Faith-Changing for LifeThe Wounds of Memory: Shame and Discovery in the Kurzem FamilyInto the Belly of the Beast: Counterfeiting Identity for SurvivalProbing Secret Conversions: Helen Fremont's Anguished Inquisition2. Deciphering Enigma CodesShadowing the Furtive Father Beyond the Grave: Mary Gordon's Ambivalent Inquiry"Love Is No Detective": Germaine Greer's Guilty HuntFamily on the Lam: A Son Running After SecretsA Scavenger in the Archives: The "Memory Boy" Tracks His ParentsThe Naked Lady's Face and the Detective's Effacement3. The Men Who Were Not There Sleuthing Amidst the Shards of the Past: Tracking Absence in the AustersThe Letters and the Flag: Recuperating a Lost FatherSpeaking Him into the World: A Daughter Reenters Her Father's HistoryA Father Gone Missing: Documenting a Broken Bond4. Becoming One's ParentThe Limits of Privacy: Decorum and Exposure at the Ackerley's"Lies Like Contagious Diseases": The Secrets of the Duke and His SonImagining Himself in the Paternal MatrixShared Secrets in the Fun House5. Breaking the SilenceRace, Secrecy, and Discovery: Black on White, White on BlackConclusion: Freedom or Exploitation?BibliographyIndex

A compelling close reading of eighteen memoirs, all of which, Porter finds, struggle with the problem of narrative voice and agency in the context of auto/biography. Structurally, Porter's book is methodical, with each text given the same treatment: a thesis that connects the text to the chapter's theme; an introduction to the text; the methods or levels of detective work involved in the writer's search; the attitude with which the text seems to be written—vengeful, understanding, judgmental, self-reflective; a comparator text; and an interrogation into whether the text's success in finding parent or self.- Teresa Coronado (Rocky Mountain Review) Detective stories are everywhere: as many critics have claimed, most novels, at least since Bleak House, bear traces of detective fiction. If this is true of novels, Porter's fascinating book argues that it is also the case for literary memoirs—where the mysteries and people investigated are particularly close to home.- Jonathan Taylor (Times Literary Supplement)