The Ghost of Bobby Dunbar (Heard on NPR's Program,This American Life)

[pameladlloyd]

On three separate occasions, two of them this past weekend, I've heard snatches of the This American Life episode: "The Ghost of Bobby Dunbar" (warning: this program takes about an hour to hear), the story of a boy who was lost in 1912, may or may not have been kidnapped, and the three families whose members' lives were changed forever as a result.

This is one of the most fascinating programs I've heard, an amazing tale of loss, love, confusion, and family identity.

Comments

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

I caught the tail end of that--it sounded fascinating.

[pdlloyd.livejournal.com]

I found it so, and thanks to teh interwebs, I was finally able to hear the whole thing. :-D

For me, it's a changeling story. It starts with two little boys who must have looked a bit similar, each separated from their birth family. In the end, one boy has been returned to what turns out to be the wrong family and the other boy has disappeared forever.

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

Yes, it really is. I thought the ambiguity about the two boys, expressed at the end of the story, was very fairy-like, in a real and kind of awful--and yet, survivable--way.

Very powerful.

[pdlloyd.livejournal.com]

I loved the commentary at the end, when his son is talking about how this boy, as a man, found a way to give his children the charmed life he didn't have. Although it struck me that his view of his father's life with the traveling piano tuner was probably not the terrible experience his son imagines.