Below is a non-exhaustive list of books, podcasts, and organizations I have found helpful on the topics of adoption, family secrets, and identity. I will continue to update this page as I discover more. There are many extensive resources included in the website links I’ve listed at the end.
Memoirs and other non-fiction
The Adoption Constellation by Michael Grand
I read The Adoption Constellation after hearing Michael speak on Suzy Rosenstein’s podcast (Women in the Middle Episode #82). His ideas on the connection between adoption and identity formation changed my life. I immediately went out and read his book cover to cover.
The Adoption Constellation provides an in-depth analysis of the foundational principles of our cultural and psychological understanding of adoption. Michael Grand questions the adequacy of the Primal Wound theory to explain adoptive experience, instead advocating for a more culturally-grounded understanding of adoption. Grand draws on the social construction of narrative identity to capture the lived experience of members of the adoption constellation, employing core themes such as loss, rejection, grief, intimacy, and mattering.
What Disturbs Our Blood by James FitzGerald
In What Disturbs Our Blood, James FitzGerald dives into his family history with an emotional and investigative rigour that few memoirists match. Driven by an obsessive need to know and propelled by a feeling that such knowing may well save him, James embarks on an all-consuming quest that lasts fifteen difficult years. Although he always knew that his grandfather, Gerry FitzGerald, was an important figure in the history of Toronto, the full story he uncovers reveals so much more. We learn that the senior FitzGerald was one of the main architects of the Canadian public healthcare system we enjoy today—a true hero who posthumously receives his rightful recognition because of his grandson's writing. On its own, the description of the author’s search keeps us riveted, but add in FitzGerald’s comprehensive examination of the mental health establishment, the Canadian public health system, and his own deeply personal narrative as son and grandson to aloof and troubled overachievers, and the result is a story that’s captivating on multiple levels.
After Long Silence and The Escape Artist by Helen Fremont
Written twenty-one years apart, these two page-turning, compelling memoirs deal with family secrets and the ways in which they impact the identity and mental health of the next generation. In After Long Silence Helen Fremont tells the story of how she and her sister dig into their parents’ mysterious and inconsistent family stories to reveal a whopper of a secret: they are not Catholic, as the girls have been raised to believe, but Jewish Holocaust survivors. Helen, with her sister’s help, embarks on a quest to find out all she can about their background. She writes her parents’ story with love and authenticity, showing us the tug-of-war between her parents’ wish to keep their trauma buried and their daughters’ need to know their histories. Extensively researched, Helen’s recreation of her parents’ WW2 experiences is powerfully rendered, staying with the reader long after the book is closed. In The Escape Artist Helen focuses the magnifying glass on herself and her sister, examining how her family’s secrets have shaped her and her sister’s identities and relationship. The book opens with Helen receiving news from her parents’ lawyer that she had been disowned. Helen is pretty sure it has to do not only with the publication of her first memoir, but also family dynamics fraught with mental illness, extreme loyalty, and fluctuating alliances. As she takes us into that world, we see how trapped she has become. Astonishingly free of blame, The Escape Artist is suffused with love for her imperfect family and is a testament of how far one must go to liberate oneself from the shackles of secrecy.
Bureau of Missing Persons: Writing the Secret Lives of Fathers by Roger J. Porter
Roger J. Porter analyzes 17 memoirs written by children of missing fathers. The book is a fascinating look into family secrets, psychology, ethics, identity formation, and the memoirist’s journey of discovery.
Memorial Drive by Natasha Trethewey
Natasha Trethewey’s memoir is breathtaking. Anyone looking for the details of the crime that shaped the life of this two-term US poet laureate will have their curiosity satisfied—the backstory, the lead up, and the horrific facts of her mother’s murder by an ex-husband in 1985—it’s all there. More importantly, however, the author paints a loving, full portrait of an intelligent, driven, and accomplished woman who was also a devoted mother. Read this book to understand that the stories we tell ourselves to survive, to make ourselves fit with the world rather than the world fitting to us, can be re-written. Trethewey does the hard work of remembering, reliving, and researching the past in order to find new meaning. As she writes the story of her mother’s life, her own is transformed. The horror and the trauma (the official record) is replaced with a proud legacy. She dreams of saving her mother and, in a way she does. I felt it as a rebirth for both. Simply excellent.
Unnatural Selection by Andrea Ross
Andrea Ross’s memoir is about her decade-long journey exploring the wilderness and working as a ranger and guide while simultaneously moving toward a different, yet same kind of knowing: her biological roots. Rich with metaphor and thought-provoking observations connecting the history of the natural world and our biological lineage, Unnatural Selections is a must-read for anyone examining similar questions.
Negative Space by Lily Dancyger
The genius of Negative Space is how fast and completely I got on board with following alongside the narrator on her quest and ensuring she was going to be okay. And as I watched her mature, challenge herself, and find meaning in her father's life, art, and absence, I felt as proud of all that she achieved as a fellow-father seeker can feel. Hers is a difficult journey, but with a happy ending: reconciled with her mother, in possession of as much of her father's life story as it was possible to gather, and at peace with herself and her decision to live out her life in celebration of all the gifts given to her by her father. I found much to relate to in this memoir.
My Autobiography of Carson McCullers by Jenn Shapland
Part memoir, part biography, this book tells of Jenn Shapland’s identification with the American novelist Carson McCullers. Shapland goes through archival documents and unwittingly embarks on a quest to uncover every detail of Carson’s life. The more she discovers about Carson, the more her own life and selfhood come into focus. Carson McCullers published her first novel at age 23 (The Heart is a Lonely Hunter) and although she married (and divorced) a man (twice), she loved women. Shapland tells of Carson’s struggle to accept her sexuality at a time when conventional society would not.
Helpful Websites
Severance Magazine
This fantastic online magazine is run by the incomparable B.K. Jackson and publishes resources and articles written by “family seekers.” Her website is for anyone who has been severed from one or both biological parents, whether by adoption, abandonment, donor-conception, any number of other reasons. All family seekers, as B.K. says in her Letter from the Editor, “have a great deal in common…they experience many of the same emotions, may have suffered similar traumas, and may have been deprived of the same fundamental rights.” Check out Severance Magazine, it’s fabulous.
Right to Know
Right to Know is a non-profit that assists people impacted by DNA surprises and misattributed parentage which can occur due to an adoption, assisted conception, or those conceived through an NPE (non-paternity event). Right to Know also promotes understanding of the complex intersection of genetic information, identity, and family dynamic through education, mental health initiatives, and advocacy.
Adoption Knowledge Affiliates
Adoption Knowledge Affiliates is an organization in Austin, Texas that I stumbled upon one day while doing online research. Their website is really good and contains lots of wonderful resources. For now their monthly support groups are meeting on line and all adoptees are welcome to join. Their annual conference is definitely worthwhile for anyone interested in adoption issues.
Podcasts
Adoptees On: The Podcast Where Adoptees Discuss the Adoption Experience
Hosted by Haley Radke. I’ve only recently discovered this podcast, and I’m loving it! Haley’s interviews tell a wide range of adoptee stories, all of them thought provoking.