Fragile Innocence: A Father's Memoir of His Daughter's Courageous Journey--Book Review.(Book review)

For us oldsters, the first thing that enters our minds whenever we see anything written by James Reston, Jr., is that he is the son of the late, legendary New York Times reporter James Reston. Hardly fair treatment to afford the author of 13 books, three plays, and magazine articles by the boatload. I say that apropos probably of nothing, except that even though I have not known either Reston pere or Reston mere, somehow this intensely personal story touched me more than if I had never heard the family name.

I read Fragile Innocence: A Father's Memoir of His Daughter's Courageous Journey in fits and starts, just as I did with For Laci, Sharon Rocha's powerful tribute to her daughter Laci Peterson and her unborn grandson, Conner. I read these books while waiting in airports, between catnaps on the plane, while waiting for the serpentine belts to be replaced on my son's ancient car, during the 10 minutes I had before the adult Sunday School class that I lead began, while stuck in traffic, and while swaying back and forth on a front yard rocker swing.

Now, granted, I hate to waste time, but it wasn't until I finished Reston's memoir that I understood the real reason I did not just sit down and read either of these books for any length of time. Both struck extremely sensitive nerves.

About Laci and Conner, I need not belabor the obvious. It is difficult to imagine any action more heinous than a husband murdering his soon-to-deliver wife and unborn son. That he dumped their bodies in a bay, like so much refuse, only added to the horror.

In the case of Hillary Reston, she was surrounded by abiding love, not mindless hate, a gift from her father, mother, and two older siblings, as well as a small army of family friends, "doctors and caretakers, teachers and admirers."

In broadest strokes Hillary's story is easy to summarize. But to briefly convey its depth of feeling and lessons to be learned is another, far more difficult task.

In 1983, at 18 months of age, the already talkative Hillary ran a very high temperature for five days. As a father, I smiled in recognition as doctors provided words of reassurance to Reston and his lawyer wife Denise Leary: nothing is wrong, give her some Tylenol. In most cases, utterly responsible advice.