Phantom Fathers

“In the capable hands of storyteller Mary VanderGoot, we are reminded of the power in knowing the past. Power to affirm family and love. Power to heal fractured intergenerational relationships. . . . Readers will find Phantom Fathers a captivating story of struggle to answer: What do we do with our history, even history we don’t want to know? A highly satisfying conclusion to The Maggie Barnes Trilogy.”


—Jane E. Griffioen, author of London Street: A Memoir





“The Maggie Barnes Trilogy comes to its conclusion in Phantom Fathers. In this final novel, we see Maggie Barnes’s children considering her harvest customs as well as the customs of their grandparents . . . . In that process, they discover as much about themselves as they do about their parents and grandparents. Readers will find themselves productively engaged in that same task, of learning to make better personal sense of the past.”


—James Vanden Bosch, Calvin University, emeritus





“How do we view the sins of our ancestors? Written with realism and wisdom, Phantom Fathers helps us take a more compassionate look at our imperfect forerunners—and at ourselves.”


—Connie Hampton Connally, author of The Songs We Hide





“With literary eloquence and psychological insight, Mary VanderGoot’s Maggie Barnes Trilogy explores in fine detail the joys, tragedies, and complexities of a loving but troubled family. In understated, delicate prose, VanderGoot tells a multigenerational story of difficult truths and messy secrets that readers may well recognize from their own experience.”


—Charles Honey, former Religion Editor, The Grand Rapids Press