My Abandonment Summary
Peter Rock

My Abandonment Overview

Peter Rock's psychological novel, My Abandonment, is the story of Caroline, a 13-year-old girl who lives in a forest with a man known to her as Father. Officials discover their situation and intervene. After they are held briefly, Father is given a job and a house where he and Caroline can live on a horse farm. Since Father knows they are being watched, they leave this house one night and never return. When Father dies, Caroline faces her past, including the memory of the night in Boise when Father took her away from her sister Della and the parents who raised them. She briefly travels to Boise without having contact with anyone. Later, she returns to Sisters, Oregon, where she makes a life for herself, somewhere between the isolated existence Father created and the social life she lived before he took her. The novel's main themes are the importance of appearances, the importance of names, and coming of age.