Arams Caldern was eleven in 1992 when federal marshals conducted a nighttime raid at the Baton Rouge apartment where he lived with his mother and four siblings. They were searching for Arams's father, who had escaped from a nearby federal prison. Once satisfied with the answers from Arams's mother, the marshals departed. At daybreak, so did Arams's family--and drove toward a rendezvous with his father, who had fled to South Florida. Thus began an eight-month ordeal of constant moves, family aliases, and drug deals. As Caldern shares, Fugitive Son is not a love letter to his father, whom he sees even after his death as an unethical, toxic, and incredibly complex man. Rather, Caldern's memoir explores how his father's undeniable love for his family despite drug addiction, lawlessness, and toxic masculinity informed Arams's rebellious decision to join the Marines, and how all this shaped his determination to become the father he wished his own had been.
Arams Caldern was eleven in 1992 when federal marshals conducted a nighttime raid at the Baton Rouge apartment where he lived with his mother and four siblings. They were searching for Arams's father, who had escaped from a nearby federal prison. Once satisfied with the answers from Arams's mother, the marshals departed. At daybreak, so did Arams's family--and drove toward a rendezvous with his father, who had fled to South Florida. Thus began an eight-month ordeal of constant moves, family aliases, and drug deals. As Caldern shares, Fugitive Son is not a love letter to his father, whom he sees even after his death as an unethical, toxic, and incredibly complex man. Rather, Caldern's memoir explores how his father's undeniable love for his family despite drug addiction, lawlessness, and toxic masculinity informed Arams's rebellious decision to join the Marines, and how all this shaped his determination to become the father he wished his own had been.
