Category: Memoir/Autobiography
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One Small Sacrifice: A Memoir (Lost Children of the Indian Adoption Projects)
by Trace A. DeMeyer
Award-winning Native American journalist Trace A. DeMeyer has published her updated memoir One Small Sacrifice: A Memoir (Lost Children of the Indian Adoption Projects), an exposé on generations of American Indian children adopted by non-Indian families. Known for her exceptional print interviews with famous Native…
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Ithaka: A Daughter’s Memoir of Being Found
by Sarah Saffian
Adopted as an infant twenty-three years before, living happily in New York, Sarah had been “found” by her biological parents despite her reluctance to embrace them. In this searing, lyrical memoir, Sarah chronicles her painful journey from confusion and anger to acceptance and, finally, reunion–but not…
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Becoming Patrick: A Memoir
by Patrick McMahon
When Pat McMahon risks the love of the mother who raised him by seeking out the mother who gave him away, he transforms from a mild-mannered engineer into a frenetic detective. After he overcomes the challenges of existential angst, bureaucratic roadblocks, and unemployment, the phone…
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Reading Adoption: Family and Difference in Fiction and Drama
by Marianne Novy
Explores the ways in which novels and plays portray adoption, probing the cultural fictions that these literary representations have perpetuated. Through careful readings of works by Sophocles, Shakespeare, George Eliot, Charles Dickens, Barbara Kingsolver, Edward Albee and others, Marianne Novy reveals how fiction has contributed…
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Becoming
by Laramie Harlow
15 unforgettable prose-poems and over 20 true short stories by NDN author Laramie Harlow. Becoming is the title of her impressive (and controversial) second collection. Her sensational first book SLEEPS WITH KNIVES was published in 2012 by Blue Hand Books. Her writing about being a…
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Lost and Found: A Memoir of Mothers
by Kate St. Vincent Vogl
She swore she would never let her birthmother into her life, but then her mom died of ovarian cancer and her birthmother found her through the obituary. Hard to argue with fate. Harder still to let go of childhood promises. This memoir explores what it…
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Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal?
by Jeanette Winterson
A memoir about a life’s work to find happiness. It is the story of how a painful past that Jeanette thought she’d written over and repainted rose to haunt her, sending her on a journey into madness and out again, in search of her biological mother.…
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Beneath a Tall Tree
by Jean Strauss
Bestselling author Jean Strauss’s memoir about her quest to unearth her past is an incredibly funny and touching journey that redefines the meaning of family and celebrates the universal connections that link us all. Adoptee Author: Jean Strauss Publication Year: 2001 Critical Reviews Adoptee Reviews: Other Reviews: …
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The Language of Blood
by Jane Jeong Trenka
With inventive and radiant prose that includes real and imagined letters, a fairy tale, a one-act play, crossword puzzles, and child-welfare manuals, Trenka recounts a childhood of insecurity, a battle with a stalker that escalates to a plot for her murder, and an extraordinary trip…
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Fugitive Visions: An Adoptee’s Return to Korea
by Jane Jeong Trenka
Trenka’s award-winning first book, The Language of Blood, told the story of her upbringing in a white family in rural Minnesota. Now, in this searching and provocative memoir, Trenka explores a new question: Can she make an adult life for herself in Korea? Despite numerous…
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Twice Born: Memoirs of an Adopted Daughter (reissue)
by Betty Jean Lifton
In this significant and lasting account, Betty Jean Lifton, acclaimed author of several books on the psychology of the adopted, tells her own story of growing up at a time when adoptees were still in the closet. Twice Born recounts her early struggle with the…
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Dear Wonderful You: Letters to Adopted & Fostered Youth
Edited by Diane René Christian and Mei-Mei Akwai Ellerman, PhD
A powerful book filled with thoughtful and inspiring letters. This anthology was written by a global community of adult adoptees and adults who were fostered. Each letter was penned to the upcoming generation of adopted and fostered youth. Editors: Diane René Christian, Mei-Mei Akwai Ellerman Adoptee…
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Perpetual Child: Dismantling the Stereotype
Edited by Diane René Christian and Amanda H.L. Transue-Woolston
A collection of stories, poems, and essays aimed at confronting the “perpetual child” stereotype faced by adult adoptees. The pieces contained within this anthology implore readers to look deeply into their own ideas about what it means to be adopted and to empathize with the…
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Adopted Reality
by Laura Dennis
Caught in a paranoid delusion that she’s a bionic spy responsible for 9/11, adoptee Laura Dennis must fight her perfectionist, self-destructive tendencies to regain her sanity. Adoptee Author: Laura Dennis Publication Year: 2012 Critical Reviews Adoptee Reviews: Other Reviews: All Bookshop and Amazon links on this site…
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Adopted Like Me: Chosen to Search for Truth, Identity, and a Birthmother
by Michael C. Watson
As a child, Michael Watson asked, “Who is my mother?” The following twenty years he asked, “Who am I?” While narrating his quest to find the missing link to his past, Watson discovers that life’s obstacles are also direct sources for human potential, and that…
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A Wealth of Family: An Adopted Son’s International Quest for Heritage, Reunion, and Enrichment
by Thomas Brooks
Brooks grew up as the only child of a struggling single mother in inner-city Pittsburgh. He was battling racial stereotypes at school and searching for a place among his peers. Then he was told at age eleven that he was adopted. Brooks had actually been…
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A Single Square Picture: A Korean Adoptee’s Search for Her Roots
by Katy Robinson
At seven years old, Katy Robinson is adopted by a Salt Lake City, Utah, couple. Twenty years later, she returns to Seoul, Korea, to reconnect with her birth family and finds herself an outsider in her native country. Adoptee Author: Katy Robinson Publication Year: 2002 Critical Reviews…
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A Princess Found: An American Family, an African Chiefdom, and the Daughter Who Connected Them All
by Sarah Culberson and Tracy Trivas
A biracial adoptee from West Virginia searches for her birth parents and discovers that her father is the chief of a Mende tribe in Sierra Leone. Her memoir is paralleled with the story of her father, recreated by a coauthor. Adoptee Author: Sarah Culberson Author: Tracy Trivas…
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A Man and His Mother: An Adopted Son’s Search
by Tim Green
From Tim’s life as a gangly youngster to competing in the grueling National Football League to having children of his own, this is an impassioned exploration of the special relationship between and a man and his mother, and how deeply this relationship affects everything we…
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A Ghost at Heart’s Edge: Stories and Poems of Adoption
Edited by Susan Ito and Tina Cervin
Sixty short stories and poems reveal the sometimes heartbreaking, often affirming tales of adoption. Written from the point of view of birth parents, adoptive parents, and adoptees, this unique anthology spans nations and cultures. Editors: Susan Ito, Tina Cervin Adoptee Authors: Mi Ok Song Bruining, Lisa Buchanan,…
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Blackbird: A Childhood Lost and Found
by Jennifer Lauck
An account of the author’s childhood, including the deaths of her adoptive parents and Lauck’s discovery that she is adopted, told from her point of view as a child experiencing these events. Adoptee Author: Jennifer Lauck Publication Year: 1999 Critical Reviews Adoptee Reviews: Other Reviews: All Bookshop…