An Archaeology of Yearning

Digging into vivid moments within the metaphor of archaeology, Bruce Mill's remarkable memoir maps the artifacts of life as a father of a boy with autism, and as a boy himself growing up in rural Iowa. An Archaeology of Yearning is not ultimately about autism; instead it reaches into the world of human connection and illuminates how storytelling and an understanding of language keep that connection alive. On some nights, I awake as if in a cave and think of the future. Mary and I will exist as memories: a quick glimpse of arms reaching toward another's shoulders or face, an image of a hand upon a book, the scent of our bodies after the sweat of sleep, the tone of our young and old voices calling our daughter or son from distant rooms or down a stair. Eventually I arrive on the image of my son, in some new home. No matter how much I have written or catalogued or kept in images, I know that the site of his life and mine will inevitably remain fragments and that only a visitor can bring us to life.