Missing Father: A Daughter's Search for Love, Self-Acceptance, and a Parent Lost in the World of Mental Illness

At once a powerful story of a daughter's literal and figurative search for her father and an indictment of the mental health system with legacies to this day, Missing Father will touch readers searching to make sense of the complexities of love, family and self-understanding. Missing Father spans the years from the 1940's through 2000 and takes us in and out of mental hospitals, board and care and nursing homes, and the streets of New York and California. Filled with searing memories and beautiful, poetic writing, it captures the extraordinary character of a bipolar parent as seen through the eyes of a bewildered little girl who grows up to become a family therapist with children of her own. While it is memoir, it reads like first-rate literature in a vein with classics such as A Beautiful Mind and One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. Missing Father cuts through the layers of shame, alienation, and ups and downs of life in a family navigating through mental illness and will resonate with those who have tried to reach an inaccessible loved one.
"Missing Father...is beautifully rendered and filled with tenderness and compassion and clarity.... It reads like a dream." -- Laura Davis, co-author of The Courage to Heal
"It is brilliant writer plus hard experience, heartbreak plus love, a beautiful, shared sculpture of human life." --Gina Bliss, MD, pediatrician
"Missing Father is a deeply moving and insightful personal narrative that draws the reader into the unnerving world of mental health system realities. --Lisa Bertaccini, LCSW, former chief of Child and Family Mental Health, Sacramento County
"Brilliant scenes abound throughout, as do moving, poetic images." --Erica Miles, author of Dazzled by Darkness
"A heartbreaking journey from confused child to confident professional.... Missing Father will resonate with anyone who has tried to alleviate the suffering of an unreachable loved one." -- Laurie Heller, adjunct faculty, Woodland Community College
"Smith's emotional honesty gives us permission to share our own dark secrets." --Janet Greenwood, PhD, RN, LMFT
"Through compelling, emotionally revealing vignettes, Shauna Smith teaches us about the power of love and empathy. Lessons for all levels of mental health workers are found in the disturbing descriptions of how an uncaring system can contribute to wrecking a life. Also, our clients, those who are caretakers and those struggling with mental illness, may find validation and learn resilience." -- Jean Rosenfeld, LCSW
"Parents cast a shifting shadow over us and draw on our deepest wells of compassion. Smith in Missing Father uses memory, writing and reflection to put the shattered pieces of a loved one's life into perspective." -- Kathryn Gronke, MA
"I started Missing Father Monday night and couldn't put it down! I love the short, bold "chapters. "And the mixing of narrative, conversation, and shared communication (letters), which, of course, would only be noteworthy with a well-written and compelling story." -- Pauli Hakensen, addiction counselor, grief specialist