I Never Called Him Pa by Diane Kane is a coming-of-age novel set in the 1950s told in the voice of Henry, a young fatherless boy living on a farm in Northern Illinois with his Grandmother, his wayward mother, and the traveler who changes all their lives. After WWII, the military sent men home on trains. Some never got off. They rode the rails in boxcars, searching for their souls lost to the toils of society or the ravages of war. Ernest, one such...