When Walter Anderson is 21, his father dies, and that`s when he finds out that the brutal man married to his mother wasn`t his real father at all. A Vietnam vet who had trouble adjusting upon his return, the author is able to turn his life around when he finds out the truth, but he promises his mother that he won`t look for his father--a Jew named Albert Dorfman--until she is dead. Finally, he does find him, as well as an alternate family who are as happy to be found as Anderson is to find them.