Following the Tambourine Man: A Birthmother's Memoir (Writing American Women) [Hardcover]

Janet Mason Ellerby (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 2007 | Series: Writing American Women

Set during the sexual revolution of the sixties, this moving work recalls the decade's prodigious effect on a generation of Americans that came of age during that transformative time of changing mores. Janet Mason Ellerby follows the crooked path she took from a protected and privileged childhood and early adolescence to her unplanned pregnancy and banishment and to her daughter's birth and adoption. She then delves into the complex journey embarked on over the next thirty-five years, haunted by her first child's memory and attempting to compensate for her loss.

Ellerby crafts an autoethnography, relating and reflecting upon the changes in middle-class American attitudes that informed the conservative suburbs of the fifties, through the political revolution of the sixties, seventies, and into today. In so doing, she provides a personal commentary on the shifts in adoption culture and describes the overlooked heartbreak that many birthmothers endure.

Editorial Reviews

Review

Told "with considerable courage," the memoir "provides an intriguing yardstick to changes in women's lives during the past four decades. -- StarNewsOnline.com Oct 7 2007

About the Author

Janet Mason Ellerby is a professor of English at the University of North Carolina, Wilmington. She is the author of Intimate Reading: The Contemporary Women's Memoir, also published by Syracuse University Press.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 289 pages
• Publisher: Syracuse University Press (September 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0815608896
• ISBN-13: 978-0815608899
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.2 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,072,906 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars How It Was Before The Pill, March 17, 2008

By 

Story Circle Book Reviews - See all my reviews

This review is from: Following the Tambourine Man: A Birthmother's Memoir (Writing American Women) (Hardcover)

When I read memoir, I scribble the margins full of notes about writing techniques that might apply to my own passion for recording my life as memoir.

Ellerby's Following the Tambourine Man: A Birthmother's Memoir inspired an abundance of scribbles. It's an excellent example of how to tell a story. Ellerby provides immediacy whether using past or present tense. She skips around in her life with ease, sometimes writing about her adult self and her sixteen-year-old self in the same sentence. And she reflects on an era by using political and cultural happenings and lyrics from the Beatles and other musical groups popular in the 60's. Although we belong to different time periods and Ellerby's story is quite different from mine, I identified with her heart-wrenching drama by imagining what if the accidental pregnancy had happened to me.

Yes, that big what if of my era and hers--before The Pill. Ellerby's privileged life in the conservative suburbs of Los Angeles wasn't protection enough. She and her boyfriend that she loved for way too long into her adult life did it only once, and when her parents found out she was pregnant, they did what any parent with wealth and status did back then. Overnight, they shipped her off to a home for unwed mothers and covered up the incident by constructing a lie that everyone, even the father of the child, was told. One lie led to another, all under the guise of what was best for their daughter.

Ellerby wanted to keep her baby, but it was taken from her after only a moment's glance. She didn't argue nor did she discuss her sadness with her parents or anyone else. Instead, she spent most of her adult life living a lie, feeling lost and lonely.

There is so much more to the story: the birthmother's guilt, her multiple marriages, and then finally the happy ending. I strongly recommend the book.

by Donna Van Straten Remmert
for Story Circle Book Reviews
reviewing books by, for, and about women

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent, October 5, 2008

By 

Janelle Humphreys "book-a-holic" (Prineville Oregon USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Following the Tambourine Man: A Birthmother's Memoir (Writing American Women) (Hardcover)

This is one of the best books written on the subject. I couldn't put it down. It's not just for those in the adoption triad, but something most people would enjoy. I highly recommend it.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars GREAT! FANTASTIC!, June 6, 2010

By 

marshmallow bunny (NC) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Following the Tambourine Man: A Birthmother's Memoir (Writing American Women) (Kindle Edition)

This is an excellent book, My BF even mentioned how quickly I read it. I did not want to put it down. Excellent story. excellent writing, Excellent.