“The recent death of 33-year-old Tristan Egolf, a novelist cursed with promise at an early age, has given rise to a literary detective story,” says Alex Beam. In his Boston Globe column, Beam observes that “Obituaries published last month failed to name Egolf’s birth father, Brad Evans, a flamboyant writer, political activist, and right-wing adventurer who shared many of his son’s gifts and demons — and who, like his son, died by his own hand.” Beam reports, however, that Evans moved “further to the right in a society that was tilting leftward,” while his son was an ambitious leftist activist who gained some prominence for protests against George W. Bush. Evans was involved in “extreme-right fringe groups” and drifted “into the ambit of William F. Buckley‘s National Review magazine.” Nonetheless, Egolf, who only met his father a handful of times, reportedly “idolized” Evans. So, “Why was Brad Evans purged from his son’s obituaries?” Says Evan’s father — Egolf’s grandfather — Warren Evans, “I’m speculating, but I think [Egolf’s mother] Paula didn’t want to share her grief with us.”