Craig Hickman had had enough of the secrets and cover-ups and lies and was determined to solve the mystery of his roots.

An estimated 7 million Americans are adopted. Depending on their age, many were adopted under the secrecy and shame of the closed adoption proceedings that ruled the day prior to the eighties. Unwanted pregnancies were covered up. Public and private agencies practically guaranteed young mothers and their families that they could go to their graves with their secrets intact. No one would ever find out who they were, least of all the children they were giving away. Adoptive parents got little, misleading, or no information about the circumstances surrounding their adopted child’s birth.

In this gripping and intimate memoir, Craig Hickman heeds the signs of his life and journeys into uncharted waters. After five years of searching, he shows up unannounced on his birth mother’s doorstep. Craig’s parents and sister are supportive of his search, as is Job, the Dutchman with whom Craig has shared the last four years of his life. Jennifer, a devout Seventh-Day Adventist, happy that her son has found her, attempts to allay her guilt and shame for giving him up and tries to make up for lost time. After all, she believes her son loves men because she abandoned him at birth.

Borrowing from ancient oral traditions, the story is told primarily in the third person whereby the telling of the story becomes part of the story itself. Part mystery, part history, part family saga, part divination–all of it true–Fumbling Toward Divinity bears witness to the transcendent power of spirit and love in an age of terror and madness.

Adoptee Author: Craig Hickman

Publication Year: 2005

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