“Searing . . . explores how identity forms love, and love, identity. Written in engrossing, intimate prose, it makes us rethink how blood’s deep connections relate to the attachments of proximity.”—Andrew Solomon, author of Far from the TreeIn the early 1980s, Mary Hall is a little girl growing up in poverty in Camden, New Jersey, with her older brother Jacob and parents who, in her words, were … who, in her words, were “great at making babies, but not so great at holding on to them.” After her father leaves the family, she is raised among a commune of mothers in a low-income housing complex. Then, no longer able to care for the only daughter she has left at home, Mary’s mother sends Mary away to Oklahoma to live with her maternal grandparents, who have also been raising her younger sister, Rebecca. When Mary is legally adopted by her grandparents, the result is a family story like no other. Because Mary was adopted by her grandparents, Mary’s mother, Peggy, is legally her sister, while her brother, Jacob, is legally her nephew.
Living in Oklahoma with her maternal grandfather, Mary gets a new name and a new life. But she’s haunted by the past: by the baby girls she’s sure will come looking for her someday, by the mother she left behind, by the father who left her. Mary is a college student when her sisters start to get back in touch. With each subsequent reunion, her family becomes closer to whole again. Moving, haunting, and at times wickedly funny, Bastards is about finding one’s family and oneself.
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This was a thought-provoking story and kept my attention from beginning to end, wondering what would become of these children as they were bounced from place to place in their young lives. The story told of several, dysfunctional adults, two of which kept bringing innocent children into the world and then giving them away and of the children and their innate longing to connect to that “missing piece” of themselves, while not really knowing what that piece was in some cases.
A good storyteller.
Yes, there are good loving parents. Yes, there some not so good parens. Yes, there are parents who have trouble understanding parental responsibility, especially from the children’s point of view. Sometimes that responsibility should consider the benefits of effective birth control as opposed to just giving away the extras. How does one do that? Even more important what about the children one keeps, some of the time but not all of the time. Children need stability and in this family they also need each other. This book is written by one of the children in this family and it is from this view we learn the story. Not all parents are good parents even when they feel they are trying to do what is best for the children. We need to find ways to help some families be the family they wish they were. No matter what it is not the fault of the child.
Good book. Sad, happy, funny, inspiring .
Mary tells the story of her parents and 6 siblings in an unvarnished and difficult biography. Blessed with fecundity but not money after the first three children the last 4 are placed in private adoptions with the guarantee that they may contact their birth family at 18.
All the siblings talk about knowing they were, “missing a piece”.
Well written and flowed well.
I read this book in an effort to try to better understand some of my relations. It made me thankful that what I perceive as my family’s neuroses are not as bad as what was portrayed here.
A true story told like prose….wonderfully written!
This book gives a very real picture of the life of children who are scattered around to other family members and about the loss and wo dering about missing siblings.
It shows Mary’s difficulties with emotional development and her need to feel part of the family that should have been.
The writing in this memoir is competent, and the subject matter is sad, but for some reason, the author’s style kept me at a distance from the emotions the family members must have experienced during their difficult growing up years. Perhaps that’s the only way the author could endure and her memories are stored at a distance. It almost seemed too good to be true that seven scattered siblings – four of whom were adopted, and the unfortunate mother would all be reunited. Toward the end of the book, I began to think I was reading a fairy tale and had to remind myself I was reading a memoir. I applaud the family members, but only occasionally related on a feeling level to their difficulties. This was not my favorite book because of the style.
Not well written…poor me, this is what life gave me.
Difficult family to read about. Interesting.
A story that I didn’t think I wanted to read,but couldn’t stop once I started.