The Bond: Three Young Men Learn to Forgive and Reconnect with Their Fathers-Sampson Davis, George Jenkins, and Rameck Hunt

The Bond: Three Young Men Learn to Forgive and Reconnect with Their Fathers
Sampson Davis, George Jenkins, and Rameck Hunt
Riverhead, Oct 2007, $24.95
ISBN: 9781594489570

In Newark, Sampson Davis, George Jenkins, and Rameck Hunt met as fatherless children struggling to survive ghetto living without a male mentor or role model; they formed THE PACT in high school to help one another make it and they succeeded as each became a doctor.

In THE BOND, the physicians look into the most prevalent disease destroying America’s family: no father. The trio does this by seeking their dads, who never had a role in their lives. The threesome separately describe growing up fatherless and how difficult that is to overcome, but do not add any new insight than they already described in the PACT. However, their recommendations to youths suffering from this pandemic illness are solid especially to go out and find a role model to mentor you. However, the most poignant segments are the sections written by the absentee dads, who offer no rationalization as to why, but explain their failures in depth. Especially discerning is that each of them also grew up fatherless. THE BOND is a moving autobiography and though anecdotal should be must reading for everyone who wonders what has gone wrong with the American family unit as generational repletion is difficult to turn around.

Harriet Klausner