Sibling Revelries: Finding Family After 62 Years - Softcover

Latham-Martin, Mary Jo

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0692078673 ISBN 13: 9780692078679

Publisher: Siblings Publishing, 2018

Synopsis

It started with a shaky hand, a worried heart and a quivering voice. Those symptoms were caused by a neurological disease that Mary Jo was told was hereditary. It wasn’t on her mother’s side. That left only her father’s genetics to explain it. Mary Jo grew up in a single-parent household, and never know her father. Her mother, one of the first women to be accepted into the Marine Corps in WWII, refused to talk about him. The diagnosis of that neurological condition sparked a chain reaction of discoveries in trying to identify its source. From DNA testing, to online and library genealogy, to US Navy service records, Mary Jo learned she was not the only child she thought she was, but one of six, with three half-brothers and two half-sisters from four different mothers and one common father. Along this journey of discovery, the siblings learned more about each other’s mothers and their father, and vowed that they’d preserve as much of their stories as they knew. This memoir is not only about Mary Jo and her journey, it’s also about the siblings and their mothers and their father—to the extent they could piece those histories together. The dialogue, history, emotions, and revelations of this expanded family merge into an unforgettable memoir of reaching out, embracing difference, healing old wounds, and finding joy in a not-so-normal world.

About this title

About the Author

Mary Jo Martin, a member of the Houston Writer’s Guild, is an award-winning writer who lives in the suburbs of Houston, Texas. Her short story, set in South Carolina, about domestic abuse and a poisoning, Flowers for Lewis, was published in a Houston Writer’s Guild Press anthology, Waves of Suspense (2015). Another short story about scars, The Life of Riley, appeared in the online literary magazine, Short Fiction Break. Sibling Revelries won first place in the memoir category in a Houston Writer’s Guild contest, and an honorable mention in a Houston Writer’s House contest.

Review

"Have you ever wondered if there is something more to life than what you see around you? This inspiring and gripping book leads you down many roads. From the grief of a father not known to a discovery of brothers and sisters who would become such a strong part of the author's life. It's a story of grief, sadness and most of all picking yourself up and moving forward. To let go of the grief and to move forward into not only self-discovery but with a full and complete heart." Amazon customer.

"A fascinating and well-told story that begins with a medical mystery, progresses down a trail of detailed genealogical and genetic research and ends with a family reunion of "strangers" that had no idea they were siblings." Amazon customer.

"What a story! I'm not sure what impressed me more, her story or how she unraveled it. Although other friends have found their birth families, this search has its own twist." Amazon customer.

About this edition

• Publisher: Siblings Publishing
• Publication date: 2018
• ISBN 10: 0692078673
• ISBN 13: 9780692078679
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 256