(I found this one of the more compelling stories I've read in recent years, and it was a pleasure to review. It is reprinted with permission from Our State magazine.)
A Case for Solomon
By Tal McThenia and
Margaret Dunbar Cutright. Free Press, a division of Simon and Schuster, 2012.
436 pages, hardback, $26.99.
It
seemed a simple and redemptive story—at first.
In 1912, a
4-year-old child wandered away from a family gathering and vanished in the
Louisiana swampland. At first, the little boy, Bobby Dunbar, was feared drowned
or eaten by alligators, but his parents soon came to believe that he was
abducted. Fueled more by hope than any evidence of kidnapping, the family
conducted an aggressive campaign to find Bobby, and, in the process, galvanized
public sympathy. After 8 months, Bobby was found, dirty but safe, in the
company of an itinerant tinker. He and his parents, Lessie and Percy Dunbar,
were reunited and the public rejoiced.
But
wait: the story is not so simple.
Another woman surfaced, and Julia Anderson claimed that the child was her son
Bruce, taken from her North Carolina home months earlier by an acquaintance.
A
protracted battle ensued, fought in the courts and—more insidiously—in the
court of public opinion.
Newspapers battling for circulation capitalized on the story’s conflict
and emotion. Aggressive reporters invaded the Dunbar’s home, insisting on
interviewing the parents and even little Bobby, and they converged on and
bullied Julia when she traveled to Louisiana to see the child she believed was
hers. Like our present-day paparazzi, the yellow journalists harassed and
intimidated the families, the children, and witnesses. Increasingly, the real truth
became mired in competing versions of reality.
This
historically accurate account reads like both a thriller and a tragedy. The
meticulous research anchors the story and brings alive the century-old events
through vivid description. Margaret Dunbar Cutright, a North Carolinian and
granddaughter of Bobby Dunbar, conducted the early research into family
documents. Co-author Tal McThenia initially produced the story as a segment for
the NPR radio show, This American Life; subsequently, the two teamed up to
write this book.
The
central question—who is the child—Bobby Dunbar or Bruce Anderson?—is not
resolved until almost a century after the original disappearance. In the
intervening years, the parents and the child grapple with pain, loss, and
haunting questions of identity. But ultimately, there is redemption and healing. Not a simple story, but a wondrous one.
(You can download the NPR story, The Ghost of Bobby Dunbar, from the archives of This American Life:
http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/352/the-ghost-of-bobby-dunbar)
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