Category: Domestic US
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Await Your Reply
by Dan Chaon
The lives of three strangers interconnect in unforeseen ways–and with unexpected consequences. Longing to get on with his life, Miles Cheshire nevertheless can’t stop searching for his troubled twin brother, Hayden, who has been missing for ten years. A few days after graduating from high school, Lucy…
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Outsiders Within: Writing on Transracial Adoption
Edited by Jane Jeong Trenka, Julia Chinyere Oparah, and Sun Yung Shin
Many adoptees are required to become people that they were never meant to be. While transracial adoption tends to be considered benevolent, it often exacts a heavy emotional, cultural, and economic toll on those who directly experience it. Outsiders Within is a landmark publication that carefully…
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Adoption Reunion in the Social Media Age
Edited by Laura Dennis
This anthology gives voice to the wide experiences of adoptees and those who love them; examining the emotional, psychological and logistical effects of adoption reunion. Primarily adult adoptee voices, we also hear from adoptive parents, first moms and mental health professionals, all weighing in on…
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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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Sleeps with Knives
by Laramie Harlow
Utterly raw, painfully true poems about adoption, child abuse, life in Wisconsin and Native American history. The poetry collection includes song lyrics from the author’s time as a musician. This is Laramie Harlow’s (Tsalgi-Shawnee-Euro) first chapbook. Adoptee Author: Laramie Harlow (aka Trace A. DeMeyer, Lara Trace…
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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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The Child Catchers: Rescue, Trafficking, and the New Gospel of Adoption
by Kathryn Joyce
Adoption has long been enmeshed in the politics of reproductive rights, pitched as a “win-win” compromise in the never-ending abortion debate. But as Kathryn Joyce makes clear in The Child Catchers, adoption has lately become even more entangled in the conservative Christian agenda. The Child…
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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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Assembling Self
by Karen Belanger
Born and adopted in 1959, at the age of two weeks, Karen had an inherent yearning her whole life to find more out about her biological background. Plagued by what seemed to be genetic health problems and illness the need for current family medical history…
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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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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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The Girls Who Went Away: The Hidden History of Women Who Surrendered Children for Adoption in the Decades Before Roe v. Wade
by Ann Fessler
In this deeply moving and myth-shattering work, Ann Fessler brings out into the open for the first time the astonishing untold history of the million and a half women who surrendered children for adoption due to enormous family and social pressure in the decades before…
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The Declassified Adoptee: Essays of an Adoption Activist
by Amanda H.L. Transue-Woolston; edited by Julie Stromberg
Throughout this book, readers bear witness to key moments in the unfolding of an adoptee from a quiet, contemplative young woman to an outspoken advocate for the rights of adoptees and their loved ones. By addressing adoption through brief essays, the book provides an avenue through…
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Lost Daughters: Writing Adoption from a Place of Empowerment & Peace
Edited by Amanda H.L. Transue-Woolston, Julie Stromberg, Karen Pickell, and Jennifer Anastasi
A collection of writings by the authors of the Lost Daughters blog. The Lost Daughters mission is to bring readers the perspectives and narratives of adopted women, and to highlight their strength, resiliency, and wisdom. Editors: Amanda H.L. Transue-Woolston, Julie Stromberg, Karen Pickell, Jennifer Anastasi Adoptee Authors: Jennifer…
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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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Adoptionland: From Orphans to Activists
Edited by Janine Myung Ja, Michael Allen Potter, and Allen L. Vance
This anthology begins with personal accounts and then shifts to a bird’s eye view on adoption from domestic, intercountry and transracial adoptees who are now adoptee rights activists. Along with adopted people, this collection also includes the voices of mothers and a father from 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 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…
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Between, Georgia
by Joshilyn Jackson
A fictional story about a woman caught between two feuding families — her adoptive and birth families — in the small town of Between, Georgia. Author: Joshilyn Jackson Publication Year: 2006 Critical Reviews Adoptee Reviews: Other Reviews: All Bookshop and Amazon links on this site are affiliate…