My Abandonment

Caroline lives with her father in a wooded area of Portland. Specifically, they live in Forest Park, in a heavily camouflaged spider-hole. They wash in the stream, keep lookout from the tops of trees, and go into the city once a week for laundry, groceries, and library books. Caroline's father says that they just want to be left alone. But Caroline is thirteen now, and she's starting to question her father's decisions.

My Abandonment is written by Reed College professor Peter Rock. He depicts the lives of the deliberately homeless: Caroline's father chooses to live off the grid, under society's radar, and by his own rules. He tells Caroline that they are happier and better than ordinary people, and Caroline believes that. But whether she believes it or not, she has no choice but to follow along on his doomed quest for glorious isolation.

This book opens up issues of privacy, alienation, captivity, love, and abuse. Caroline is an unforgettable character, a strange and loyal girl who longs for things she can't have. I found this book to be haunting and brilliant; I hope you check out this Oregon novelist.