Author: Phillip Good
ISBN: 13: 978-0984160358

Cick Here To Purchase In Search Of Aimai Cristen

Phillip Good is originally from Canada and a mathematician by education, both of which you (the reader) only see in the smallest of doses from his fiction writings. He taught for a while at Tulane Medical School, penned twenty-one novels and hundreds of articles for a variety of newspapers and magazines. Mr. Good has also authored seven text books in his lengthy and prolific writing career.  In Search of Aimai Cristen is the third of his works that I have read and reviewed. It is also somewhat of a continuum of the previous two, storyline wise. (I Love You Maggie and Sad and Angry Man)

In Search of Aimai Cristen delves into father daughter relationships or lack thereof: relationships that, more or less, typify families around the globe. In this work Phillip Good is the main character along with one of his (three known and two known only in photographs) daughters, Dana. Dana has recently moved back in with her father where she is desperately seeking to understand and know him, not just on the surface, but deep down knowing.

Dana finds numerous boxes of her fathers’ musings, writings, etc., boxed up and labeled in the garage where she also notes he moves them from place to place---but why? What do they contain and how has that information made the man she knows as dad? One such box that has been shuffled from place to place over the years is replies to a newspaper ad taken out by Aimai Cristen. Dana wants to know who Aimai is and how she fits into her fathers’ life.

Through reading the letters from various respondents to those ads and asking selective questions of her father and uncle Pete Dana arrives at a more complete picture of her father in his youth and how he has progressed through his colorful life. In another box of more familial memories Dana tries to make sense of her fathers’ double Ph.D and her mothers’ dropping out of college, their divorce, her fathers’ distant persona toward his family, and life in general. Through her inquiries they talk about men, women, sex, love, drugs, parties, and life. Reluctantly, they find each other in this cathartic process. It’s about love and life.

In Search of Aimai Cristen pulls the previous books together in ways that could not have been otherwise accomplished. Phillip Good writes in this book from his daughters’ perspective, his own perspective, and his good friend Pete’s perspective. He mixes poems with personal thoughts of each person’s perspectives, phrases, and life processes to bring the reader into their conversations almost as if you are part of this story. The interaction between the characters is distant, friendly, loving, and compassionate which resonates with their emotions as this story unfolds.

Fringe issues of this book come from the time period, 1960’s and forward. There is poignant glimpses into a free Stone’s concert that had to be moved all around the countryside in California, “Human-be-ins”, and psychodramas reinacted by groups of people in need of personal release. Much of this transpires in and around campus life at Berkeley when Phil Good may have also been in residence. I enjoyed the confluence of the three novels most after completing this read/review.  

Cick Here To Purchase In Search Of Aimai Cristen