Giving Away Simone - Softcover

Waldron, Jan L. L.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0385485999 ISBN 13: 9780385485999

Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, 1997

Synopsis

Giving Away Simone is Jan Waldron's account of her compelling, turbulent, and maddeningly original relationship with the daughter she gave away. Jan's baby, Simone, was the fifth generation of women in her family to be abandoned by their mothers. Determined to fight this "undertow of conditioned exiting, an affliction of easy farewell," Jan reunited with her daughter, now renamed Rebecca, when Rebecca was eleven. They spent the next thirteen years trying to come to terms with each other and figure out what kind of roles they were to play in each others' lives.

For birthmothers, there are no simple equations of loss and gain. Each adoption is its own unique universe of complexities and ambiguities. But often the most personal is also the most universal, and there are truths to be found in every story. This beautifully rendered, intensely personal memoir gives essential shading to choices usually reduced to black and white. Waldron does not dispense advice; she probes the emotional fallout, on both sides of adoption, an area in which sedated platitudes have presided for far too long. "

About this title

About the Author

Jan L. Waldron has taught nonfiction writing at the University of New Hampshire, Northern Essex Community College, and Emmanuel College.

From Library Journal

Waldron, a birthmother who allowed a family she knew to adopt her daughter and then reunited with that daughter when she is 11, here tells her story. The challenges Waldron faces as she attempts to build a relationship with her daughter arise from many sources: Waldron's relationship with her own mother; her relationship with her sons, whom she is raising; her daughter's relationship with her adopted parents; and her daughter's adolescent search for her own identity. Though she focuses on the narrative of adoption and reunion, Waldron interweaves her own history-she was abandoned by her own mother when she was a teenager-and ultimately reveals more of her feelings about motherhood than about adoption. While this personal story may not necessarily lead to generalizations about adoption or motherhood, it is a well written and fascinating account that will provoke thought and discussion. Recommended for public libraries.
--Kay Brodie, Chesapeake Coll., Wye Mills, Md.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
• Publication date: 1997
• ISBN 10: 0385485999
• ISBN 13: 9780385485999
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 256