All My Mothers and Fathers: A Memoir

By Michael Blumenthal

Book Overview

Shortly after his mother dies of breast cancer when he is ten years old, Michael Blumenthal discovers that she was not his biological mother, and that his aunt and uncle, immigrant chicken farmers living in Vineland, New Jersey, are really his parents. As fate would have it, his adoptive father, a German-Jewish refugee raised by a loveless and embittered stepmother after his own mother died in childbirth, has inflicted on his stepson a fate uncannily--and terrifyingly--similar to his own: Having first adopted Michael, in part, to help his dying wife, he then imposes on him the same sort of penurious and loveless stepmother whom he himself had had to survive. With these revelations, the "mysteries" that seem to have permeated Michael's childhood are laid bare, triggering a quest for belonging that will infiltrate the author's entire adult life.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1943665265
• ISBN13: 9781943665266
• Release Date: September 2016
• Publisher: West Virginia University Press
• Length: 272 Pages
• Weight: 0.70 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 6.0" x 8.9"

Customer Reviews

Poignant

A poignant memoir...especially since it was written by a former neighbor. I had no idea he suffered such heartache.