Sons from Afar

"Sons From Afar" (1987) is the sixth book in Cynthia Voigt's Tillerman Cycle, the series of novels dealing with Dicey Tillerman's family which also includes Homecoming, Dicey's Song (winner of the 1983 Newbery Medal), The Runner, A Solitary Blue, Come A Stranger, and Seventeen Against the Dealer.

Plot

With Dicey and her friends Mina and Jeff away at college, "Sons From Afar" turns its attention to younger brothers James and Sammy. James is now 15 and wondering about his missing father. He and Sammy begin an investigation across Maryland leading to adventures in Easton, Annapolis, and Baltimore to find clues about the life and character of their father. Sammy at first is uninterested in the man who abandoned their mother and his four children, thinking it has no real bearing on him, but he goes along with James for brotherly support. Their roles eventually become reversed after James has an epiphany about accepting himself for what he is and Sammy realises he needs to start asking questions about himself and where he's heading. Along the way, they find "missing men" affecting the lives of more and more people, and renew their understanding of their place in their family.

Literary References

James has to do a report in his French class, and ends up doing a second for another student, leading to guilt about cheating.
*Victor Hugo, "The Hunchback of Notre Dame"
*Albert Camus, "The Myth of Sisyphus" (essay}James takes a part-time job in a medical office and answers the distressed call of a man with urinary retention and thinks of an episode in a book he read. Though he realises later he shouldn't have given medical advice, the incident starts him to think he should be a doctor.
*John Steinbeck, "Travels With Charley"