Customer Reviews

Reading Adoption: Family and Difference in Fiction and Drama

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Marianne Novy's "Reading Adoption" is a breath of fresh air in the dismal swamp of sentimentalism and sloppy journalism that characterizes too much of adoption literature, both pro-adoption and pro-adoption reform. Ms. Novy, a professor of English Literature and an adopted person, intersperses her own story with examples of adoption and illegitimacy in literature, from such diverse sources as Shakespeare, Dickens, Charlotte Bronte, Barbara Kingsolver, and Edward Albee. Her examples range from Tom Jones to The Diary of Brigid Jones, from Oedipus to Carol Schafer's Sacred Virgin. She discusses both familiar favorites, and those new to some of us that makes us want to look into them, or to look at old favorites with a fresh viewpoint.

Unlike many adopted persons who have written their stories, when Ms. Novy found her birthmother and family, she did not find soul mates or people with whom she had a great deal in common, even though she was welcomed and values the ongoing relationship she has with them. She wrote, " There are two simple views that public discourse about adoption falls into too easily. One is the view that only adoptive relationships matter; the other view is that only birth relationships matter. Some people have articulated a third viewpoint, that both matter but probably in different ways, that it depends on the circumstances, that adoptees have a choice about how to negotiate their identity and their relationships. But this approach still is not as widespread as it should be. I hope that this book, by analyzing places in literature where simplifications are found and places where they are transcended, will show more people how their world looks with a third view."

Marianne Novy admirably succeeds in doing this, and illuminates the tension between families, birth and adoptive, that is always there, and is always much more complex than the all-nature or all-nurture camps try to make it. She makes us all question our dearly held myths and icons. By not accepting without comment either the "forever family" fairytales beloved of many adoptive parents, or the reunion fairytales beloved of many birthmothers and adoption reformers, she makes all of us think, not just feel, and she stretches our imagination to encompass the complexity and diversity of adoptees and adoption as it is lived.

This is a groundbreaking book that should be read and discussed by all who are touched by adoption.

Mary Anne Cohen

Feb.2006

Who am I? Where do I come from? Where am I going? These labor intensive identity questions take a lifetime to answer. For adopted persons, sharing nature and nurture with two mothers and two fathers, responses are often more complicated. Fiction and drama involving adopted people have provided conscious and unconscious answers, advice and role models to deal with such complex family situations over the centuries.

In Reading Adoption: Family and Difference in Fiction and Drama, Marianne Novy, an adopted person who is a Professor of English and Women's Studies at the University of Pittsburgh, gives astute commentary about adoption literature from Oedipus to the novels of Barbara Kingsolver. As a sensitive memorist, Dr. Novy also reveals how adoption literature has enhanced and sometimes hindered her own search for self-definition. This author's goal is to "more of the next generation of adopttes to feel less alone" and to make adopted parents aware (through literature) of the stuggles necessary to meeting their children's needs.

If you love reading, if you are connected to the world of adoption, if you crave making connections between literature and drama and people's interior lives, this is the book you are looking for. As an English teacher and parent by adoption, I found it spoke directly to both my professional expertise and to my personal experiences. I applaud Marianne Novy for her fair, generous and interesting book, the work of a gifted scholar and mature daughter.