Customer Reviews

Blood Strangers: A Memoir

5 star:		(12)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Adoption. Absent fathers. Genealogical research. These subjects are not especially novel, nor personally compelling to me. So my expectations for this memoir were modest.

But this tale proved compelling. I was hooked from the first pages, when Briccetti described a powerful childhood recollection of her father's abandonment - only to acknowledge that this early memory was completely fabricated. Briccetti's tireless search for a long-lost grandmother immerses the reader in her quest. The ensuing twists and turns, from a watermelon field in Missouri to a records repository in San Francisco, are tantalizing, and the mystery's resolution comes as quite a surprise.

In exploring her complex family ties and conflicted relationships, Briccetti is painfully honest and achieves a remarkable depth of philosophical reflection. Although not everyone shares her family configuration or her lifelong fascination with biological connections, her story touches on universal themes about loss, loneliness, love, parenting, and the quest for connection and meaning that we all share.

Let me preface this little review by stating that I'm not generally interested in books that are called memoirs. Many memoir writers should probably not try to publish them. Either their stories are not interesting, or, when they look in the mirror, they see someone else. Fortunately, Briccetti has neither of these problems.

I will also mention that these Amazon reviews are often questionable, particularly the ones critiquing the fledgling, not-famous books. Such reviews (even this one) should be taken with a grain of salt. When there are five stars along with phrases like, "This book is just wonderful! I couldn't put it down!", the reaction is, Well, friend-of-the-author, why should we believe *you?*

Blood Strangers is about two things: first, tracing blood relatives through previous generations when adoptions are involved; and second, the emotional and practical challenges of being a semi-out lesbian with a wife and kids in the 90s. (Though the term *wife* here is not technically correct, in an ideal world it would be. "Partner" schmartner.) The common thread for these two elements, of course, is Family (and specifically fathers, or the lack thereof). Briccetti weaves it all together very artfully. And it rings true.

Regarding the search for biological relatives, at first I didn't quite understand why she was so driven to find people she previously didn't know existed, people who may no longer even be alive. As the book moves forward, however, the author's motivation became clear to me. She conveys her emotions, which are often complex and contradictory, with skill and grace.

The other element of the book was for me even more interesting. I live in the Bay Area and am surrounded by people of the LGBT community--friends, coworkers, relatives, they are all part of my everyday life. Honestly, I don't think too much about it. I realize now, though, that none of them has ever sat down with me and told me their story, what they've had to endure in an often intolerant world. While I didn't come across Bricetti's book because of this aspect, I feel it was important for me to read her detailed account. She tells how she had nothing but heterosexual relationships through her teens and twenties. When she winds up falling for a woman, it comes as quite a surprise to her. She describes wondering how the people in her life will react to her entering into a committed relationship with a woman. She feels afraid and sometimes even ashamed. Though the author isn't the type to get up on a soapbox about all this (the cover doesn't even mention this aspect of the book), it makes *me* feel like getting up on a soapbox. I was struck by a particular scene, where she and her love, Pam, make their vows to each other. At this point most of the people in their lives don't know about their lesbian relationship. It's their own private little ceremony. They perform it standing on some rocks by the ocean. But this scene that should be touching and sweet is overshadowed by the heartbreaking reality of the situation. During their vows they look over their shoulders to make sure no one is looking. They are afraid.

I am very lucky that I've never had to deal with anyone considering me less than a full-fledged member of the human race. Briccetti is somewhat lucky in that she didn't come into all this until she was a mature adult; it can be much more damaging for teenagers. Anyway, I think it's important that all these little stories get told, whenever and wherever. We all hear the shocking, headline news stories about the Matthew Shepards of the world. But it's the subtle, pervasive little events in quiet people's lives that all build momentum and add up to a horrifying situation in our society. While it seems things may finally be changing, it's not happening fast enough.

OK, back to the book. With a minimum of the afore mentioned hyperbole, I will simply say that Blood Strangers is a very good book. Read it.

Some feel it is better to let the past lie while others are driven by the need to know as much about what happened and what triggered those chains of events. Kathy Briccetti is one of the latter, driven to know about the events within the generations of her family history, circumstances that created generations of fatherless families and adoption.

Briccetti's parents divorced when she was very young. She and her brother were separated from their father and adopted by their step-father. Briccetti's belief--that she, her brother and mother were abandoned by her father--was distorted by the hazy memories of a three-year-old child.

In Blood Strangers, Briccetti's shares her compelling and well-written narrative as she explores her personal history, as well as her father's. She bravely takes the reader through her search for identity. From a childhood rife with issues of abandonment and loss. From being an ostensibly heterosexual woman to a committed lesbian partnership. Briccetti says, "It's human nature to seek our wholeness when given only pieces; our perceptual systems are programmed to see and hear the gestalt, so I imagine our emotional systems are similarly encoded."

Briccetti opens Blood Strangers by reflecting upon her two sons, conceived via a stranger's sperm, and the fact that they may never know the man that fathered them. She gave birth to them and they have been adopted by her partner. The adoption of Briccetti's sons was the third adoption in the history of her family. The first was the closed adoption of her father, seemingly cloaked in secrecy because of so little available information. The second was her adoption by her step-father, upon her mother's marriage to him. Briccetti is concerned that the legacy of her family and the way it has influenced her, will affect her sons--a "lost opportunity for anything deeper than simple acquaintance," in a sense, continuing the cycle of "blood strangers."

Briccetti has little support as she searches court records for information about her father's adoption, makes phone calls, and asks questions of herself and others (she began her search when in her teens). Her mother, brother, and partner don't understand her drive to know, and her father is torn about the search because he has not delved into the spectrum of emotions about his adoption. Her search to find the missing pieces of her family history takes commitment, patience, perseverance, and decades of time.

Briccetti made many discoveries--some wonderful, a few sad, and others years too late. While she was able to bring lost family members together and provide many of the missing pieces in her family's puzzle, I wasn't convinced that Briccetti had finished her search.

by Judy Miller
for Story Circle Book Reviews
reviewing books by, for, and about women

Does your family tree have holes? Do you wonder about relatives who've gone missing? Katherine A. Briccetti is an expert on both. She says, "My children are the third generation in our family to be adopted and the third generation to grow up without their father." Her questions about these unusual circumstances and the repeating pattern of missing fathers led her to examine her family's highly original story in Blood Strangers.

Briccetti's memoir delves into the complexities of the bonds between parent and child. It speaks to those who live without their biological fathers and those who have been adopted by same sex couples. Her own sons were conceived with the help of a sperm donor. "No dad in this family," she wants to say to those who ask.

The narrative alternates between a probing study of the unique family she created with her partner and the missing fathers and grandfathers she uncovered as she researched her genealogy.

After digging through hidden history, she discovers that her generation has finally broken free of some of the consequences of growing up without a father. Her memoir is a balanced and nuanced exploration.

This review is adapted from my interview in the fall issue of Writer Advice, [...]
You Want Me to Do What?

I am hardly what you would call the target market for this book, but a friend gave it to me and recommended it because I am going through a divorce and our large family is no longer what it once was (or at least not in the mythology of our family that I had created to deal with the difficulties I could ultimately no longer deny).

I'm not much for memoirs. I'm really not. After about five pages, the frequency of the personal pronoun really starts to get on my nerves. The only memoir I had ever been able to get myself all the way through was George Best's, the great Northern Irish soccer player. I loved George Best, but I really had to force myself to read that one.

But "Blood Strangers" really touched me, and in profound ways. At times I couldn't read it, it was so painful for me because it resonated so clearly with my own life -- as a father, the story of the search for missing fathers was told with great sympathy and compassion and honesty. The longing and the sorrow that fathers feel for their children they do not see is dealt with in ways I haven't read before.

For anyone who is a parent (adoptive or not), I cannot recommend this book highly enough.

Ms. Briccetti is above all a tremendous stylist. The writing is lucid, eloquent and restrained. It has a nearly Hemingway-like quality in its attention to small details.

It is also a deeply American kind of story. In the tradition of Walt Whitman's "Song of Myself". The journey to self-discovery, of making one's life on one's own terms, the search and creation for an identity in a new place. These are such powerfully American themes, and Ms. Briccetti executes their telling with great skill and self-understanding.

An unforgettable piece of work.

What a fabulous read! From the first line ( a stunner) to the closing scene of Briccetti's son impersonating Darth Vader, I couldn't put this book down. WHy? It's so honest. And, it's got it all: courtroom drama, love, parenting debacles, politics, loss and reunion....all told with style. You don't need to be 'alternative' for this book to speak to you--this is a story about an American family, three generations deep, and one amazing woman trying to make peace with herself. A memorable memoir indeed!

In my opinion, one of the test of a great author is when you can relate to her without having anything about your life story in common with her. I read this book in one sitting because it was so interesting, compelling, and touching. I did feel like I had stumbled upon someone's diary and felt even a little guilty for continuing! The candor with which Katherine Briccetti writes is inspiring and admirable. I can imagine the book is even more moving for gay parents and people searching for connections with lost relatives. I would recommend this book to anyone!

Ms. Briccetti has written an exquisite rendering of her life. It flowed through my hands as I turned the pages. While I've known part of her story, I hadn't known all that was unveiled in this work. She is talented, thoughtful, thought provoking and I believe there are many other good things coming to us readers from her in the future. I will eagerly await their arrival. I would recommend this book to any human being. We all search for things in our lives and we all want to put the pieces together. Kathy has done that and we should all be so fortunate.

This is such a great story and so well told. It reminds me a lot of Glass Castle by Jeanette Walls, but the emotional content is so much richer. I found myself reading passages over and over again because they were so well written.

I hope this book gets the attention it deserves.

I really loved this book. I feel like it had something for everyone and the story was especially poignant for me as a person who has questions about my own family. Briccetti's story is unique to her own (very interesting) life, but I felt connected to her story at every turn and I am sure that anyone experiencing adoption, estrangement, and/or genealogical experiences would feel the same. I was particularly struck by how I felt connected to the author, especially her comment in the story about how fatherless children are everywhere--that particular line gave me chills and I cannot get it out of my mind. I really enjoyed this book and will be buying it for my friends who are having children, adopting children, and experiencing estranged family relations.