Eleanor's Rebellion: A Mother, Her Son, and Her Secret [Hardcover]

David Siff (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 22, 2000

Eleanor's Rebellion is the extraordinary story of a man who discovered in middle age that almost nothing he had grown up believing about his parents was true.

When at the age of forty David Siff learned--in the first of a series of shocks--that he was adopted, he began a roller-coaster journey into his family's past. He discovered that his biological father was not the man who had raised him, but someone he had never met: the actor Van Heflin. He discovered that he had been born out of wedlock, placed in an orphanage at birth, and subsequently adopted by his own mother. He learned that his mother had not been the contented homebody he had believed her to be. He discovered the ambitions and frustrations of the woman who had given  birth to him--the  adventurous, rebellious young Eleanor, in determined pursuit of a new and better world and an acting career, who suddenly detoured into marriage for the sake of her child. He discovered the roots of his puzzling behaviors, casting his own acting career in a new light.

In his account of the fascinating and rocky process by which he finally came to know his mother--moving from shock to bitterness to an increasingly profound appreciation of her life--David Siff has given us a heartfelt and enriching book.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

In 1975, when David Siff was 40 years old, his world turned upside down. Not only was he adopted, he learned, he was adopted by his own birth mother. Eleanor Segal had been forced to place her son in an orphanage for 14 months after his birth, but moved heaven and earth to get him back; when her son was 3, she even married a man she didn't love, just because Benjamin Siff promised to be a good provider and a good father. David's natural father, she told him, was the actor Van Heflin, dead for several years by this time. This bombshell revelation helps explain to the middle-aged Siff the tensions that simmered in his childhood home, and his own difficult behavior as a kid. But it also triggers major disruptions: he resumes the acting career he had abandoned in his 20s, begins drinking heavily, and shoplifts compulsively. His honest, meditative memoir traces a journey toward understanding his mother, a teenage rebel who squeezed herself unhappily into the mold of traditional wife and mother. His own wife and children bear with David during this trying period, and the story ends on an affirmative note, as documents from the Home for Hebrew Infants prove to him that his mother "lost friends, alienated her family, gave up her plans to be an actress ... to make sure she held on to her child. Her devotion to me was absolute." --Wendy Smith

From Publishers Weekly

For the first year and a half of his life, Siff lived in an orphanage. He had been temporarily placed there in secret by his unwed mother, Eleanor, who was unwilling to give him up for adoption, but was also reluctant to reveal her predicament to her father, unwittingly setting into motion the lifetime of well-meaning lies that gave rise to Siff's memoir. A restless, independent-minded young woman, Eleanor had been expelled from her Bronx high school for forging a letter excusing her from gym class, and began hanging out in Greenwich Village in the early 1930's. There she met like-minded rebels, pursued her interest in socialist politics and theater, had a brief affair with an actor and got pregnant. Aided by a cousin, she concocted a lie and left home before she started to show. After giving birth, she returned home and began a campaign to convince her family to take in her son as a foster child, which they did, before she eventually revealed the deception to her father, who never forgave her or his wife for their betrayal. Brought up as the oldest of three children of his mother and her eventual husband, Benjamin, whom she married when David was a toddler, Siff began to get wind of his history only at age 40, when he procured a copy of his birth certificate to cast a horoscope. Driven by turbulent feelings of despair and rage at his mother's betrayal and lies, Siff's narrative bravely grasps the truth. Looking back at the effects of the conspiracy of silence on all the family members, Siff powerfully bears witness to the price that had to be paid for maintaining the secret of his birth. Photos. (Aug.)
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 272 pages
• Publisher: Knopf (August 22, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 037540175X
• ISBN-13: 978-0375401756
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 6 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,467,332 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3.0 out of 5 stars elenor's rebellion, February 3, 2010

By 

Elana Devora Clavner - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Eleanor's Rebellion: A Mother, Her Son, and Her Secret (Hardcover)

i'm still trying to figure out why it took 31/2 weeks to ship.

i needed it for a specific purpose- and it took too long to be useful

5.0 out of 5 stars Poignant and Inspiring, December 3, 2008

By 

Randy Kadish "Author of The Bad, The Good and... (New York, NY) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Eleanor's Rebellion: A Mother, Her Son, and Her Secret (Hardcover)

Poignant, serious story of betrayal and a man's search for the truth, and for a way to come to terms. I felt tremendous compassion for all the major characters, probably because David portrays his parents with great depth. He also tells his story simply, without fluff - and that only adds power to his memoir. I found this book inspiring and enlightening.

5.0 out of 5 stars amazing honesty told in gifted prose, September 15, 2005

By 

DB361 (Jersey City, NJ USA) - See all my reviews

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This review is from: Eleanor's Rebellion: A Mother, Her Son, and Her Secret (Hardcover)

I don't think I've ever read a more honest memoir covering such difficuly material. The author is unsurpassed in describing both his own, often bad, behaviors and the tough material of his family's life. Moreover, he shows very clearly what knowing "the truth" about family secrets can and cannot do.

I have studied what is called "the intergenerational transmission of trauma" and this book describes one form of it better than anything I've ever read. I also found the author's style to be both learned and lucid, often bringing in material from various experts in the field. I recommend it to anyone who has had to deal with family secrets or trauma, either in one's own life or as a professional.