A scathing critique on a foreign adoption system and the harrowing account of one woman’s attempt to fight it.
Debut memoir about trying to adopt a Guatemalan child amid the adversity of a corrupt system.
“I've never given birth,” writes O’Dwyer, “but I know the exact moment when I became a mother: 10:00A.M., September 6, 2002”—the moment she and her husband sat in a hotel lobby, awaiting the infant girl they hoped to adopt. Yet this celebratory moment was soon overshadowed by the corrupt Guatemalan adoption system. The author recounts her initial naiveté, how she and her husband shelled out vast amounts of money to adoption facilitators and notarios in order to assist them in wading through the red tape of a foreign adoption. Yet nearly two years and thousands of dollars later, O'Dwyer and her husband remained no closer to their goal. Rather than continue her transcontinental flights, the author quit her job and moved to Antigua to focus on her daughter's adoption full time. This decision led her into the dark side of adoption, a seedy terrain in which she was forced to weave through the barbs of a system set up to exploit the most money and resources from potential parents. Armed only with her elementary-level Spanish, she was forced to rely on a small band of trustworthy Guatemalan officials and potential American mothers struggling through the same experience. Her obsessive quest was constantly hampered by paperwork, signatures, DNA tests and countless other bureaucratic pitfalls. But despite the tragic circumstances, the optimistic author tells a hopeful tale in which she viewed every procedural misstep as a step leading her closer to her daughter.
A scathing critique on a foreign adoption system and the harrowing account of one woman’s attempt to fight it.Pub Date: Nov. 1, 2010
ISBN: 978-1-58005-334-1
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Seal Press
Review Posted Online: July 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2010
BOOK REVIEW
Six discursive, stirring autobiographical essays wrestle with the social definitions foisted on the author as a black man and situate him within his own personal experiences and the collective history of his kin. Grief, hope, and contemplation fill these pages as Wideman (Philadelphia Fire, 1990, etc.) unburdens his heart on the subjects of manhood, racial prejudice, fatherhood, and family heritage. Deceptively short and readable, these are not simple essays. Each is structured around the same two-part process: identifying the ways in which the "paradigm of race" destroys African-American pride, love, communication, and history, creating distance between fathers and sons; then addressing the ways this distance ought to be overcome. "Because we don't talk or can't talk father to son, son to father, each generation approaches the task of becoming men as if no work has been accomplished before," writes Wideman. "Imagine how different we might be if we really listened to our fathers' stories." His own parents were divorced, and he describes his relationship with his father as by turns estranged, distant, painful, and loving. The best piece by far is the title essay, which incorporates his finest thoughts on subjects discussed in the other five and achieves a clarity they sometimes lack. In it, Wideman explains that as a boy wanting to be closer to his dad he always heard the church hymn phrase "farther along we'll know more about you" as "father along." Among the highlights is a description of a pilgrimage he and his father made to South Carolina to search for family roots. In his prose, Wideman displays an uncanny gift for conjuring up a potent single image: "My mother's open arms. My father's arms crossed on his chest." This book will frustrate readers, however, as Wideman fails to do more than allude to his own son, who killed a teenage camp mate. Earnest, artful, hopeful, angry, and proud, Wideman's lovely book contains the seeds of promise for a world where black children have a rich wellspring of history to draw from, and where there's "enough love for everybody."
Pub Date: Oct. 1, 1994
ISBN: 0-679-40720-0
Page Count: 216
Publisher: Pantheon
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 1994
Matchmakers and matchees alike will find help in this good- humored, complete guide, which advises women to leave no stone unturned—and no phone call unreturned—in the determined quest for a mate. Freelance writer Brawarsky (who charges no fee for her matchmaking services) claims to have six successful couplings to her credit (and two more that look promising). For the ever-alert woman looking for men, happy hunting grounds are everywhere to be found: art galleries, flea markets, even the checkout line at the supermarket (if nothing else, you will at least have found out the name and use of those unidentified leafy green things in his cart). And everyone can be enlisted as a spy on your behalf: Realtors know the single men who have just moved to town; interior designers are privy to information about their male clients; and your doorman can tell you about ``the guy who just moved into 11G.'' So why are you still sitting there like a slug? Get out and meet someone, already.
Pub Date: Oct. 4, 1994
ISBN: 0-671-86496-3
Page Count: 128
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 1994
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