It's book tour time again, and this time we read AM Homes' The Mistress's Daughter. This is a memoir written by a woman who was adopted, and when she dug into her past she found a not ideal situation - she was born to an unwed mother who'd had an affair with an older man. The birth mother was a slightly unhinged character, her father the most perfect example of a narcissist I've ever seen in writing. The author tries to dig into the past, to find out more about her biological family, as she gets drawn in to trying to find out just who she is based on the sum total of the parts she comes from.

So far on the book tours, I've enjoyed all the books. This book was no exception - I couldn't put it down. AM Homes writes in a type of stream of consciousness style that I love. Her emotions were all over the place, as were her actions. I truly loved this book, and am buying others of hers in hopes that I will love them, too.

So - the questions I have to answer for the book:

AM Homes seemed to have a lot of angst that she attributed to growing up as an adopted child. Is such angst inherently a part of being adopted, or rather, is having angst about ones childhood an inherent part of being a child, and adopted children simply pin their angst to being adopted while children raised by their biological parents pin their angst to whatever other issue they perceive as the "problem" of their childhood?

I've wondered about this, too. Are we a generation of "My childhood sucked so I'm having a bad day"? I've seen it on those talk shows - my dad was an alcoholic and that's why today hasn't been good. My mom was a drug addict and that's why I can't make anything of my life. Are these crutches and enablers? Of course having a shit childhood is bad. Having a rough background sucks (I had one myself). But it shouldn't color the day to day. I look at my grandparents - my beloved grandpa had one hell of a rough background, yet he just shrugged it off and went about his business. My Japanese grandma is herself adopted, but it plays no role in her life, nor did the idea of finding her biological parents ever play a role.

I think we are an Angst Generation. All generations had a large degree of suck. It's only now that we are free to explore the pain, trauma, and trouble that growing up inflicts on us. Yes, being adopted is very difficult for some people to reconcile, as is alcoholism, addictions, neglect, and many other paving stones that seem to make our generation.

In the book, A.M. Homes writes about being adopted into a family that had recently lost a nine year old son. She says "I always felt that my role in the family was to heal things, to make everything all right - to replace a dead boy." Grieving mothers of this generation and others, were often told to "forget about their lost child, have another one right away, move on" What, if any, of this is helpful advice and why/why not? Is this attitude something that might give a subsequent child the burden of feeling that they would not have been wanted had their sibling lived - particularly in the case of adoption, where the child was specifically chosen and might not have been otherwise?

This advice has never made sense to me. If your beloved Collie dies, I don't think it's a good idea to run right out and get another Collie puppy. If your cat passes away after old age, why go out and immediately get another kitten? To take away the pain? To distract you? To somehow cover up the hole they left behind? They're different holes. When I had my miscarriage I couldn't bear it. Now I look back and know that had I not had my miscarriage, I wouldn't have Nick and Nora. After miscarrying we didn't get back on the horse the next month, we took some time out to grieve, to heal, to find our way again. There is enormous comfort in the love and distraction a replacement brings, but it doesn't take away the loss, and I do indeed think that the onus is on the newcomer to ease the pain of the past. In the case of an adopted child being taken in immediately after the loss of another child, I think that pain would be particularly harsh - what if I'm not good enough to cover the loss? Should I feel an enormous degree of gratitude that I was picked because their child passed away? Should I feel guilty that I'm here and the other child isn't? Difficult. I think that's perhaps why adoption agencies over here insist that couples wait 12 months before trying to adoption after being through fertility treatment. I think it's right to help the smoke and foggy horror of fertility treatment clear, so that you can plan for the future without being traumatized by the past.

A feeling of the "subtlety of biology," a lovely aphorism, is not something that Homes necessarily welcomes. I sometimes feel that biology raps me over the head when I look at biologically-related family members. How has infertility affected our feelings about the "subtlety of biology"?

As an anthropologist, I've long been very intrigued with the nature vs. nurture debate. An integral part of that debate is the role that biological makeup plays - are my earlobes the way they are because of someone in my past, and will future generations have strange earlobes, too? Nick's recent eye exam had us learn that myopia runs in families-almost every single member of my family has it (including me), but none of Angus' does, so our kids have a 50/50 shot of developing it.

I come from a very, very diverse biological background. As a result, none of my family members look like each other. I lost count of how many times people asked if my sister was adopted (since I was white and my mother was white, no one asked about me. The irony there being I look absolutely nothing like my mother, it's my brown-skinned sister who has the same face as my mother.) Biology was unimportant to me, really. When I donated eggs to other women I never felt like they were "my eggs" from an ownership perspective, although I did feel guilt when the other women didn't conceive. Likewise, I think perhaps because I have such a lax approach to biology that I could've used donor eggs, and I was more than happy to have pursued adoption. Biology needn't be an inhibitor to moving forward, to me it's just something to keep in mind.

The story about Ellen's boxes and the fact that the author was unable to go through them for several years struck a cord with me as I have my own boxes that are hiding in the house waiting for unpacking. Have you experienced something similar with a project, book, or other item that plagued you with emotions that prevented you from tackling it? What was the situation? How did it resolve-- did you become zealous about something you discovered during the resolution (like the author's quest for her genealogy) or did it just all fade away?

I too have boxes. I always have had boxes. When Bad Things Happen, I pack them up and don't deal with them. It's my way of things, it's always been my way of things. At some points in my past I have taken those boxes and without even unsealing them, I've simply thrown them out. Gone. No longer dealing with them. I now try to keep the boxes as best I can - my modus operandi is to destroy and dispose of things when I feel great depression and angst. I have boxes. Then I don't. And because my memory is so bad, when those boxes go so do the things behind them.

Most of the the time, anyway.

Hop along to another stop on this blog tour by visiting the main list at http://stirrup-queens.blogspot.com/. You can also sign up for the next book on this online book club: Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen (with author participation!)

-H.

PS-So far we've raised a lot of money on the ebay.co.uk site for our UTERUS fund raiser - I'm so hugely grateful and touched you wouldn't believe it (think sap, then multiply by one hundred). We have loads of things up for auction on our ebay.com site, with more posted yesterday. Please, please keep checking on items that you may want, because every penny is going to help our friend fund a round of IVF.

PPS - I've heard from Vicki, a longer email that sounds more like her. She's still unwell but one of her sons is doing much better and she even got to hold him briefly. Her other son is seeing a specialist today and sounds like he's got a lot going on, the poor little guy. She asked me to relay her thanks to you all for your comments - she read and appreciated each and every one and said they mean so much to her. I truly hope her boys get well and come home soon, as I also hope my friend finds her way out of the dark.

From the bottom of my heart, I thank you too.

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