39. The Mistress's Daughter: a Memoir by A.M. Homes

Homes’s autobiography started out as a piece in the New Yorker in 2004. While she always knew she was adopted, Homes is surprised to learn in her early thirties that her birth mother would like to be reunited with her. In 1993, she agrees to reunions with her birth mother, Ellen, and her birth father, Norman. Ellen, who got pregnant at 22 when she worked for Norman in his clothing shop, is instantly needy and tries to push her way into Homes’s life. Norman demands a DNA test to assure that Homes is actually his child, and distances himself from her almost immediately by only agreeing to meet in hotel bars and without his family. When Ellen dies a few years after the reunion, Homes packs her belongings up in a few boxes, and doesn’t open them for seven years. When she does unpack them, she realizes that she still does not understand this woman who was part of her life.

I listened to this on CD and it was a very haunting and moving account of how Homes tries to deal with her “new” parents. From Ellen stalking her at a book signing, to Norman refusing to hand over the DNA results so Homes can join the Daughters of the American Revolution, Homes does not gloss over her reunion with her birth parents. While the first part of the book deals with her struggle, the last part of the book wanders when she delves into genealogy to learn more about her distant birth relatives. In the end, the reader does not know if she ends up suing her birth father for her DNA information, or how their relationship ended up. This memoir is a very personal account of learning about one’s family.