Paul Anthony Boeken

"His Mother's Son: Memoirs of an Accidental Man" chronicles the first sixty years of author Paul Anthony's life, from his birth into a dysfunctional family to his forgiveness of his parents and himself for their pathological relationship. Along the way he describes the experiences that helped him overcome the mental, physical, psychological, and emotional difficulties that resulted from a deep-seated feeling of rejection and abandonment. Foremost among these was a profound love of the natural world, which over time he explored as a backpacker, mountaineer, rock climber, and sailor.Always a student of himself, the theme of self-examination and discovery is another central thread that is woven throughout his travels, work, reading, artistic pursuits, dream analysis, and romantic relations. But it is not until he returns to the place he was born and raised that he appreciates the true nature of his affliction, as well as the need to free himself from the influence of his mother in order to escape his past and move on in the present.Her death provides the impetus to review both his own life and hers in an effort to lay to rest a lifetime of pain, loss, and estrangement. As he composes this memoir he finds that the process itself holds the key to redeem his accidental life for an authentic one.