MEANT TO BE

A lean, readable, and sanguine memoir celebrating an adult rite of passage.

In brief, briskly paced chapters explaining how he finally came to meet his biological father, former Parade magazine editor Anderson frequently pauses to interject Deep Thoughts and Philosophical Questions. “Why is God unfair?” “How can I marry Loretta?” “Elie [Wiesel] understands, Mom. This hurts more than I expected.” (This last as he looks at his dead mother.) These literary public-service announcements interrupt rather than enhance a remarkable story. Only after his father died could 21-year-old Anderson finally ask his mother the question that had bothered him since childhood: who was his father? The man who had just died beat Anderson so often that the promising student left school early and joined the Marines to get away from home. He’d always sensed that he was different from his two older siblings, both in temperament and appearance, and his mother confirmed these feelings. His real father, she told him, was Albert Dorfman, a Jewish co-worker with whom she had an affair during WWII while her husband was fighting in Europe. Recalling his tough childhood in an equally tough neighborhood, his experiences as a sergeant in Vietnam, and the hardships following his return (protests against the war, he believes, made finding a job difficult), Anderson also details his alienation and anger during those years. Learning the truth helped; he attended college, found work at a newspaper, and married happily. Because his mother had made him promise not to tell his siblings about her affair, he only felt free to find his real father after they died in middle age. All ends well as families meet and bond, and Anderson, no longer angry, finds meaning in his life.

Self-help and grit vividly affirmed.