For the month of July, our “Books & Beyond” series continues with New York Times’ bestselling author Gabrielle Glaser. She will be joining us via Zoom on Thursday, July 15 at 7 p.m. to talk about her new book, American Baby: A Mother, A Child and the Shadow History of Adoption.
This great nonfiction book tells the shocking truth about postwar adoption in America. It is told through the bittersweet story of one teenager, the son she was forced to relinquish and their search to find each other.
This moving story of one teenager’s experience with coerced adoption in the 1960s is also an eye-opening exposé of an entire industry built on lies, greed, racism, sexism and stunning amounts of medical malpractice.
Gabrielle believes that sweeping historical trends must be explored through the stories of the lives of the people who are most deeply affected by them. To fully investigate the story, she tells in American Baby, she interviewed sources and visited archives in a dozen states from Oregon to Florida, as well as France and Israel.
Closed adoption records are being legally challenged in states nationwide. Open adoption is the rule today, but the identities of many who were adopted or who surrendered a child in the postwar decades are locked in sealed files. American Baby illuminates a dark time in our history and shows a path to reunion that can help heal the wounds inflicted by years of shame and secrecy.
Pick up your copy at Kent Memorial Library.
Registration is required. www.suffield-library.org or at 860-668-3896.
Look out for more exciting “Books & Beyond” events coming up in the near future.