[In "Lost in America" Isaac Bashevis Singer] makes his own rules—choosing to isolate one short span of his life and to revisit it in a form which will demand neither dramatic invention, as in fiction, nor facts not always worth knowing, as in autobiography. "I consider this work no more than fiction set against a background of truth. I would call the whole work: contributions to an autobiography I never intend to write."

Even so, this is Mr. Singer's third book of his kind of autobiography, following "A Little Boy in Search of God" and "A Young Man in Search of Love." His father, the author has told us in the earlier books, "lived like a saint and he died like one." And Singer himself is a saint—or anyhow saintly—which may be the reason why, to avoid speaking directly of his virtue, he evolves a form whose narrative he clouds: "I had to distort facts … dates … places … in order not to hurt those who were close to me."

His main intention is something larger than data. His father, he says, was a man "blessed with a faith in God, His Mercy, His Providence. My lack of this faith is actually the story I am about to tell." His faith resides partly in his writing, in the idea that something good must come of it.

Merging memory and feeling, defying form when form will not serve, he has made in the end this work of wisdom, regret and humor. (pp. 7, 28-9)

Mr. Singer's thinking begins to assume the form of negative speculations as we approach the end of the period of his life told in this book. "I was beginning to ponder a religion of rebellion against God's indifference and the cruelty of those whom He has created in His image."…

Here, for the moment, the young man's quest ends. Singer the man goes on, of course. If we are lucky we will have further volumes of this autobiography. (p. 29)