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Verse: A Review by Ron Morgan Ghost at Heart's Edge, Stories and
Poems of Adoption There is a heap of adoption books out there: bromides and diatribes, books on how to adopt, books on how to parent adopted children, books on how to be adopted, books on how to search. And, of course, books by professionals of every stripe on how to process and hopefully recover from various adoption experiences. These volumes uneasily share the special adoption section in bookstores all over the country, but with the exception of B. J. Lifton's lyrical prose, there isn't much literature tucked inside them. My test for literary worth is simplicity itself: if you weren't directly involved in some adoption drama or other, would you read any of these books? Literature is a triumph of imagination and craft. Most folks writing about adoption are journeyman writers at best; in the case of how-to books they're writing to the lowest common denominator, and in the case of memoirists, the narratives they transcribe are their own lives, which naturally limits their ability to use imagination. Unfortunately, the quality of adoption books suffers in inverse proportion to their "authenticity." The great thing about literature, as opposed to "authentic" narratives, is that the artful lies of a great writer often contain more truth than the narrower tale told by one who lived the story. "A Ghost at Heart's Edge: Stories and Poems of Adoption" is an anthology of literary pieces, some original to the collection, some republished from other sources. Its beauty and strength lies in its art; although some of the work is highly personal memoir, most of it is artifice. The selections run the gamut of adoption as experienced by the triad; the agony and relief of relinquishment, the ambivalence, frustrations, and rewards of adopting, and the synthesis of all these forces in the adoptee. There is a smattering of "big names" here: Allison Lurie, Joni Mitchell and Isabelle Allende are the marquee stars, and Allende's piece is one of the weakest of the collection, with the feeling that it was excised and lifted from a longer story. The best works capture the bitter and the sweet, "Personal Testimony", by Lynna Williams, is a story of a picaresque nine-year old adoptee in Southern Baptist summer camp worthy of Flannery O'Conner. Lurie's piece, "Waiting for the Baby", paints a moving portrait of a prospective adoptive couple in India, focusing on the woman's anguish and alienation as they are rejected by their agency. When the editors of "Ghost", Tina Cervin and Susan Ito, called for submissions, they were awarded an embarrassment of riches in the form of hundreds of submissions. The editors did a superb job of winnowing. "Ghost" is slightly uneven, but I can't think of many anthologies that aren't. Importantly, the editors maintain a rhythm and tone which well suits the subject. My only quibble is that there aren't any stories about social workers or adoption activists. * * * Ron Morgan discovered his adopted status late in life, and now compiles data, writes and lectures on the LDA (Late Discovery Adoptee) phenomenon. As BN's Events Chair ( and a member of BN's Executive Committee), Ron spearheaded a Uniform Adoption Act protest at the ABA conference in San Francisco, emceed the Bastards at the Bell rally in Philadelphia and worked on the 1998 Bastards on the Bay conference in San Francisco. Ron is a writer, web designer, contractor and political activist who lives with his wife and three kids in San Francisco. (This feature first appeared in the Winter 99/00 issue of the Bastard Quarterly.) Copyright 1999 Bastard Nation |