THE SOUVENIR A Daughter Discovers Her Father's War

The author, a journalist, remembers her late father as emotionally remote, a characteristic somehow engendered by his war experiences, experiences he chooses to keep to himself. Puzzling. She finds surprisingly eloquent letters he wrote to her mother from the Pacific Theater. Thence begins the quest for the man's inner life that fills the pages of this memoir. Suzanne Toren adopts an approach of Apollonian dignity to the narrative, dispassionate but involved. Thus, she plays against the intense warmth of the story, which is hardly objective reportage. Nonetheless, the book manages to catch her up, and she in turn catches up the listener. Y.R. (c) AudioFile 2003, Portland, Maine [Published: APR/MAY 03]