Chasing Ghosts

Louise A. DeSalvo

"Chasing Ghosts describes how, near the end of his life, the daughter of a veteran of World War II comes to terms with her father, emotionally wounded by his military service through the stories he tells her about his childhood, about his military service in the Navy in the late 1930s, and about his wartime experiences and through her research undertaken to understand her father's life in the context of history. Told through the voice of a daughter seeking answers to her father's life, the narrator journeys into her father's history and the context in which it enfolds. She learns that her father's response had been a mixture of rage and silence and she begins to understand why he has chosen her as an object of his abuse. The narrative provides an understanding of working-class World War II veterans who performed the behind-the-scenes work, like the narrator's father's work as an...