The Book of Sarahs: A Family in Parts

By Catherine E. McKinley

Book Overview

Catherine McKinley was one of only a few thousand African-American and bi-racial children adopted by white couples in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Raised in a small, white New England town, she had a persistent longing for the more diverse community that would better understand and encompass her. In an era shaped by the rhetoric of Black Power and Black Pride, McKinley's coming of age entailed her own detailed investigation into her birth history, a search complicated by the terms of a closed adoption that denied her all knowledge of the circumstances of her birth.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1582432597
• ISBN13: 9781582432595
• Release Date: October 2002
• Publisher: Counterpoint
• Length: 289 Pages
• Weight: 0.92 lbs.
• Dimensions: 8.3" x 0.8" x 5.8"

Customer Reviews

Amazing and Moving Book!

This book touched me to the core! Catherine's story is searingly honest, human, passionate and moving. Inspite of being extremely busy I could not put it down from the time it was delivered until 3am when I had finished it. This tour de force not only addresses issues of adoption, identity, race and prejudice but also how one's environment and circumstances affect one's own perception of events and experiences. It is the best book I have read in years!

Searching for Reality

Catherine went searching for the truth and she found it. It was reality and not a made up story with a happy ending. I believe that she was very self serving in telling the story. I felt she did not really appreciate the parents who raised her, until the very end. I wondered how they felt after reading this book. She certainly laid out all her complaints about them. I personally could relate to her mother, who was doing the very best she could for a rather unappreciative daughter. On the other hand, I think I gained some insight to what it was like to grow up black in a white world, not easy at all. I'm glad she was able to tell this story with as much depth and clarity as she did. This story also brings to light the plight of the children of a middle class woman who had several children and didn't choose to acknowledge or care for them. What about birth control? Yes, she was mentally ill, but I wonder if we can excuse her for that. In the last several years I have done the research that reunited my husband (in his 60's) with the birth mother who gave him up. The search was very interesting and it was a miracle how it all came together. The story has a bittersweet ending, since his birth mother passed away within a year of their reunion. This is a great story and I couldn't put it down.

One from the heart.

It can be hard enough to come to terms with family and identity when one is not adopted. Imagine growing up the transracial adoptee of a white family in a tiny working class town in rural Massachusetts (read: all white). Moreover, you are biracial and subject to putdowns and jibes by "full-blooded" members of your race. This background makes up the first part of Catherine McKinley's compulsively readable memoir. The second part is her search for her roots, and her reckoning when she finds those roots and they are not quite what she expected. McKinley has a superb ear for dialogue and mood. Moreover, The Book of Sarahs is so full of suprises that sometimes it's like reading a thriller. McKinley starts out by giving us her fantasy of her birth mother that carried her through her youth (most adoptees have one)...and part of the fun of the book is seeing just how different reality is from her fantasy, again and again. McKinley also writes with wonderful humor and subtle characterizations that make it difficult to dislike anyone in her book despite their foibles. Finally, I can't agree with other reviewers that McKinley was cruel to her adoptive family. Her adoptive parents clearly understood her journey, and by the end of the book she intimated that she had resolved her issues with them.Don't miss this one...one of the best I've read this year!

An Honest, Candid Memoir

I beg to differ with some of the other customer reviews posted for The Book of Sarahs. Reality is messy. Members of the adoption triad--birthparents, adoptees, and adoptive parents--share a complicated, emotionally charged relationship from the moment the adoptee is born. There are one thousand and one reasons why birthmothers feel that relinquishment is the best possible choice for their child; there are just as many reasons why adoptive parents choose to raise a non-biological child. But the adoptee has the most to gain or lose. In my twenty-six years as a birthmother, I am continually amazed by the infinite variety of paths triad members have traveled, yet we're all connected by the same feelings of uncertainty, wistfulness, and longing for what might have been. Thankfully, adoption today is much more open, kinder, gentler; many studies have documented the impact of adoption on all triad members, and there are fewer black holes than there were a generation or more ago. Catherine McKinley's personal story of life as an adopted Black child raised in a white family and predominately white community will captivate readers. One does not have to a member of the adoption community to appreciate her search for self. Ms. McKinley's prose is a pleasure to read, a beautifully, richly written story of relationships that readers will find hard to put down.

What a life!

Catherine McKinsley utilizes her never sentimental to write this wonderful memoir. In this book, Catherine tells her true story. As a transracial adoptee, Catherine has spent eight years to search her "true" families, including her " mother and father, sisters and half-sisters. It is a wonderful book. A review says that "Catherine takes us through the tortured labyrinth of American racial and ethnic divides and miraculously makes us glad we took the trip." I disagree. I don't think it is a book about American diversity issues in the late 1960s and early 1970s. It is just a book about Catherine's search of her "true" family history. I admire her persistence to search and her courage to tell the world about her experience. However I feel extremely sorry for the McKinsleys, Catherine's adopted parents and brother (William). They love her by heart, but it is so hard for them to show their love to her. Catherine refuses to accept their love. I think it is not easy to be an adopted parents, especially Catherine's adopted parents. She refuses to accept them. When I read the chapters about the confrontations and conflicts between Catherine and her adopted mother, I almost cry out and tell her, "Stop it! Why aren't you be nice to your mother? Why are you so hard on her? What do you want from her? It is OK for you to look for your birth mother, but you don't have to be so hard on your adopted mother." It is so unfair to her adopted parents. Catherine is now a renowned writer. I hope that she feels thankful to her adopted parents. It is them who gave her a very wonderful life and chance to be an educated person.