Finding Makeba

Alexs Pate wrote Finding Makeba as a letter to the children he abandoned years before. The story in the novel, while fictional, stems from his real feelings as a father without children and as such is remarkably true to life. And not just his life, but mine, and possibly of every daughter who for one reason or another doesn't know her father. I think this is why when I told him I liked it, his answer was "Good. I wrote it for you."

from the book:

    "It's really hard to say that I love you and that I love your mother and yet I'm afraid that I'm going to die. That if I don't find a way out of here I'm not going to make it. We need so much. We need black men to be fathers. We need black men to be artists. We need them to make a statement, a final, summary statement to the world that what we see and feel might hold the key to our existence. Might save everybody. I believe that. And yet I don't think I can do it all: be a husband, a father and me.

    "So listen, sweetheart, this is what I want to know. Do you understand? Can you forgive me? I mean, if you knew that I was fighting for identity, a chance to concentrate on my gift, would you understand? Would you insist I be with you even if it meant I would never write again? If you were certain that no matter how much I loved you, if I stayed here i would be unhappy, would you still want me to stay?"

Amazingly, Alexs manages to excuse the absence of this fictional father. He has reasons for what he did and eventually he discovers how to communicate them. And most importantly, he comes back, which is something I think lonely kids will hope a lifetime for. 

Finding Makeba is a fascinating and emotional story about family, identity, superstition and life plans. I recommend it to everyone interested in figuring out who they are or in beginning to understand other people.