Joel Everett Harding

Vagabond Boy: Memoir of a Youth's Journey Through a Heartland of Chaos Joel Everett Harding

In this remarkable and moving memoir the author relates the startling boyhood he spent traveling across 1950s America with his restless parents before interstate highways were invented, bumping into reality at every turn. It abounds in adventure and nostalgia as though Tom Sawyer and Kevin Arnold of "The Wonder Years" were combined in one boy leaving a trail of shenanigans from coast to coast. His encounters with strange landscapes, curious people, and dubious caretakers dangle lessons in life for his taking, and sometimes leaving. When his parents abandon him on a lonely highway at six years old, however, trust in others suffers. As he struggles to make sense of it other events accumulate, sometimes humorous, heartwarming, even harrowing, and a growing sense of unease mounts with increasing turbulence that infects and threatens the family. When calm eventually seems to be restored he learns his whole childhood was a deception and a startling new reality sweeps him toward the edge of an emotional chasm of discontent that threatens to swallow and imprison him forever. He realizes he must find a hidden door to his future before he is finally thrust unprepared to face the world as an adult, where the only road remaining open points towards a wasted life ahead. "Vagabond Boy" is a true story of resilience and perseverance by a boy discovering himself and the difficult world he encountered. Yet the work also offers a deeper inspirational message for today's readers who struggle with their past in an ambiguous and fragmented culture, precisely where most of us still live today.