The Foundling, Paul Joseph Fronczak
The Foundling, Paul Joseph Fronczak
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The Foundling
The True Story of a Kidnapping, a Family Secret, and My Search for the Real Me

Author: Paul Joseph Fronczak, Alex Tresniowski

Narrator: Kirby Heyborne

Unabridged: 11 hr 24 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 04/04/2017


Synopsis

This is the inspiring and “page-turning” (Booklist) true story of a man who discovered that he had been kidnapped as a baby—and how his quest to find out who he really is upturned the genealogy industry, his own family, and set in motion the second longest cold case in US history.

In 1964, a woman pretending to be a nurse kidnapped an infant boy named Paul Fronczak from a Chicago hospital.

Two years later, police found a boy abandoned outside a variety store in New Jersey. The FBI tracked down Dora Fronczak, the kidnapped infant’s mother, and she identified the abandoned boy as her son. The family spent the next fifty years believing they were whole again—but Paul was always unsure about his true identity.

Then, four years ago—spurred on by the birth of his first child, Emma Faith—Paul took a DNA test. The test revealed that he was definitely not Paul Fronczak. From that moment on, Paul has been on a tireless mission to find the man whose life he’s been living—and to discover who abandoned him, and why.

Poignant and inspiring, The Foundling is a story about a child lost and a faith found, about the permanence of families and the bloodlines that define you, and about the emotional toll of both losing your identity and rediscovering who you truly are.

About Paul Joseph Fronczak

Paul Joseph Fronczak works for a non-profit organization dedicated to saving lives. He has worked at several colleges, helping people better themselves through education. Paul is a former actor and avid motorcyclist, and he has played bass guitar in several bands. He loves hanging out with his young daughter Emma Faith in Las Vegas, where they live. The Foundling is Paul’s first book.

About Alex Tresniowski

Alex Tresniowski is a writer and bestselling author who lives and works in New York. He was a writer for both Time and People magazines, handling mostly human-interest stories. He is the author or coauthor of more than twenty books. For more about this story and the author, please visit AlexTres.com.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Karen on January 23, 2025

What happens when you find out your story – your life story is a lie? How do you address it? Confront it with your so-called parents? It isn’t even a story about whether you are adopted or not. It is a story about being kidnapped and then found and returned, but then…is it really you who was found?......more

Goodreads review by Davyne on June 22, 2017

A real life mystery… very intriguing and kept me turning pages until the very end. Paul Joseph Fronczak never felt like he “belonged” with his family. But it wasn’t until he was 10 years old that he discovered old newspaper articles in his family’s basement all about his kidnapping from the hospital......more

Goodreads review by Katie on December 24, 2016

If you like biographies or mystery thrillers, pick this book up immediately! I could not put it down and finished it within two days. This story has more twists, turns, dead ends, new glimpses of hope, questions and answers and then more questions then you could ever believe. It's hard to sit back a......more