When Babette Hughes was two years old, her father disappeared suddenly and mysteriously from her life. Although he had been murdered in a turf war with the mafia, and although her uncle -- an innocent bystander -- was murdered along with him,her mother told her that he died of pneumonia, never acknowledged her uncle's existence, and then remained willfully mute about the murders, her own childhood in a Dickensian orphanage, her marriage, and the secrets of her long widowhood. So Babette embarked on a search, not only for the father she never knew, but for her brilliant, elusive mother who turned out to be even more of a mystery. Her memoir describes that quest amid the drama of the times: Prohibition, the Roaring Twenties, the Great Depression. Without self-pity, and with eloquence and passion, she describes the ways in which her parents' secrets affected her life, and, finally, of her journey toward understanding and self-discovery. LOST & FOUND is a story of the struggle to survive and transcend murder, secrets, and abandonment. It is a story of a family captured by its own bloody history. It is ultimately a triumphant tale of Babette's step-by-step passage from an ill-starred and dark destiny to selfhood, freedom, and a transported life.BABETTE HUGHES, author with Robert W. Pitcher of WHY COLLEGE STUDENTS FAIL, has also been published in the Saturday Review, been a columnist for the Cleveland Press, contributing editor to Cleveland Magazine, and has published articles and book reviews in the Cleveland Plain Dealer and Sunday Magazine. She and her husband live in Austin, Texas, and are the parents and step-parents of ten children.
Hardcover Edition