The Man I Didn't Know narrates my discovery of a father unknown to me. Until several years ago, I thought that I did know my father well. Although my parents were divorced and I lived with my mother, I spent all day Saturdays with him for 11 formative years, from ages 8 to 18. And I continued to communicate with him by weekly letters and occasional visits for another ten years until his death. He was a good father: attentive and loving. But, then, 32 years after his death, I discovered his diary and myriad short stories that he had written under the pseudonym Ellis Worth. As I began to explore this trove, I quickly came to a startling revelation: the author of the diary and the stories was unrecognizable: a stranger, a father I didn't know. This stranger was beset by the insidious demons of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), demons that were foreign to the father I knew, respected, loved.

Flustered, I was compelled to read further, hoping to resolve this disconnect between the fathers I did and didn't know. My readings, coupled with my personal memories, transformed into a study of my father's recovery from acute mental illness, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). My father's struggle to recover from this illness had eluded me all of these years. Moreover, as I read about this unknown aspect of my father, I learned more about the effects of his affliction on my own development during childhood and early adulthood. Now, with the wisdom of age and hindsight, I have transcribed what I have learned about the lingering effects of PTSD on my father and, indirectly on myself, in The Man I Didn't Know.