the year we disappeared a father daughter memoir

Blending equal parts bravado and emotional frailty, D’s presence adds a lively element to the solid relationship of the two longtime friends D quickly becomes the mischievous voice encouraging rebellion. With her colloquial and gentle style, Woodson weaves a tale of burgeoning friendship among three New York girls. After D returns to her mother’s care, Neeka and the narrator find that not even Tupac’s death can hold the three of them together. The three girls find themselves bonding over parental restrictions and Tupac Shakur, and their developing friendship encourages the girls to embark on a forbidden bus ride off the block.

The summer of 1995 brings D Foster away from her foster home to the block where 12-year-olds Neeka and the unnamed narrator reside. The implications of governmental corruption go unnoted, including the official response to the shooting itself-protecting the family with taxpayer-funded firearms and police surveillance, rather than institutional reform. At once competitive, stubborn and aggressive, Busby’s personality seems to have both prompted the shooting and helped him survive it.

Beyond recounting a fascinating, if lurid, tabloid story, neither author offers any analysis or reflection that would allow readers to place the events in a larger context. The account ends before readers learn how (or if) they made it to adulthood in one piece. Until the family was secretly relocated, Cylin, nine, and her brothers struggled to manage an intolerable burden of fear, even under 24-hour police protection. Readers should know that the book depicts Busby’s shooting, injuries and reconstructive surgeries in unrelenting detail. This alternating father-daughter memoir provides a graphic account of the event and its yearlong aftermath-both directly attributable to a corruption-riddled municipal government. In 1979, John Busby, a Falmouth, Mass., cop was shot in the face while driving to work.

The year we disappeared a father daughter memoir