Sara Solovitch - Articles

Separated at Birth
Search for biological parents leads two women to journeys of self-discovery

When you don’t know the story of where you come from, you can be anybody: the stolen daughter of a king, or the abandoned child of criminals on the run. Somewhere in the past, you’ve got a different name. A different identity. Had you been allowed to keep that name, that identity, you’d have a different life. Your future would be filled with other choices.

The missing facts of birth lie at the heart of these books by West Coast writers. In “Somebody’s Baby” by Elaine Kagan, and “The Sperm Donor’s Daughter,” by Kathryn Trueblood, the need to know and see one’s birth parents is presented as a biological imperative. The main characters, both adult women, hunger after a memory that goes beyond a collection of life experiences. The memory they seek is cellular.

“You just want to see a little piece of yourself, and you certainly can’t see that when you look at me” Margaret, the understanding adoptive mother, tells her grown daughter, Claudia, at the onset of her search in “Somebody’s Baby.”

Claudia, a psychologist, has a jock husband, a sweet little girl, two doting adoptive parents, and yet, she’s haunted. She dreams of her birth mother.

…this other mother who would never wear a moss-green lacy dress, like Margaret; this other mother, smiling behind the candles and the white roses, was wearing black. And she looked just like Claudia. She had light-brown wavy hair and was tall and thin, with a smattering of freckles; and rotten penmanship. It was hard to know how you could tell about her penmanship from a dream especially one where she didn’t write anything, but it was clear to Claudia that long night as she lay punching her pillow, that this other mother wrote just like her. And looked like her and talked like her. And this other mother,

Claudia has wavered for years about whether or not to search for her birth parents and is finally impelled to do so after reading a picture book to her 3-year-old daughter. Called “Are You My Mother” it is about a bird who hatches out of its egg and immediately waddles off on a search for its mother.

Kagan has written a novel steeped in the issues of adoption. At times, it reads almost as a primer on how to effectively search for one’s birth parents. The author has done her research: You see Claudia file for her original birth certificate from Sacramento’s office of the state registrar. You follow her as she obtains consent-for-contact forms. You accompany her to the national agency that helps adopted children in their search. And ultimately, it’s a little dull and almost pragmatic.

Especially after the raw, driven passions of the first riveting section that takes place in Kansas City, 1959, and tells the story of Jenny, Claudia’s birth mother.

Jenny Jaffe is the Jewish daughter of well-to-do parents, a self-described “plain girl, a beige girl, a practically nondescript girl,” who is transformed overnight upon meeting a gas-pumping young drifter out on parole from a California prison.

I can’t tell you what it was about William Cole McDonald, except everything. What I can tell you is that from the night of my seventeenth birthday until they destroyed us, I spent every waking moment I could with Will. It didn’t matter what I had to do or say— I did it or said it.

Remember what it feels like to lose your desire for food because there’s no room left in your body for any appetite besides lust? That’s what Jenny and Will have. They also have a sweet appreciation for each other. He finds her beautiful and believes in her secret dream of becoming a dancer. She’s the only person to whom Will, a James Dean-like character with a penchant for fighting, can reveal himself and his painful past.

It’s hardly a relationship built to last; in fact, they have so little in common that when her cold, impenetrable mother assures Jenny she’ll outgrow Will, the mature reader is left nodding in reluctant assent. But the two lovers never have a chance to find that out for themselves. In her senior year of high school, Jenny gets pregnant. She and Will make plans to elope, but he never shows up. Devastated by his betrayal and at the mercy of her mother, Jenny is forced to give her baby up for adoption.

The memory of Will and Jenny’s passion haunts not only their lives, but the rest of the novel. Everything that follows is a letdown. By contrast, Claudia’s blandly-sculpted middle-class life in Los Angeles 30 years later and her inner struggle (should she search or shouldn’t she?) is almost boring by comparison.

Kagan is a strong storyteller, with a smooth, breezy style that moves and bristles with lots of dialogue. But if you’re looking for a novel of ideas, reach instead for “The Sperm Donor’s Daughter.” The title story is a novella, a densely written piece told through the interior voices of two women.

Nellie is an emotionally bruised woman haunted by the memory of her first and only boyfriend, Carson, who died in the Vietnam War. For years, she has perpetuated the subterfuge that Carson was the father of her child, Jess.

The story begins as Jess, now grown, pregnant, and armed with some newly acquired knowledge, goes off in search of her real father: an anonymous sperm donor. With help from her mother, she makes the assumption that her father was a medical student:

In those days, women were inseminated with fresh sperm so the procedure had to have taken place within two hours of ejaculation. All we had to do was find the closest medical school and call up the alumni association for the year books.

As she flips through one of the books, she fixes “on his face in a matter of seconds.” Her mother does the same. “I found him so fast it was scary, but you can always find yourself on the page faster than your friends. The resemblance was that powerful.”

At times, Jess’ search seems almost pathetic. She breaks into the man’s summer house on Lake Michigan with a butter knife, seeking clues to his relationships and personality. To him, she may be nothing more than a vial of sperm. But for Jess, he is the key: Her future is dimmed when the past is unknown.

By the time father and daughter actually meet, the tensions are almost unbearably painful. Awaiting him in his examining room (she gets in on the ruse of a prenatal exam), Jess thinks:

I almost want to put on the gown, let my father examine me so I can feel his hands upon me, as though there might be some similarity between how he would have touched me as a baby and how he would touch me now as a stranger.

The full potential of technology’s ramifications appear suddenly, almost terrifyingly clear. Her book sets the stage for some confrontation of almost mythic proportions, reminiscent of Oedipus—that other child who never knew his father. Not that anything catastrophic happens in “The Sperm Donor’s Daughter.” After all, where Oedipus killed the old stranger on a narrow mountain pass without ever guessing his true identity, Jess knows her father’s name.

And then a certain familiarity, that can only be called the wisdom of the body, makes itself known.

“Are you sure you haven’t been in before?” her unsuspecting father asks Jess, looking up from her chart. “Maybe when you were a child?” “Not that I know,” she answers. “Well, you look familiar anyway,” he says.

Trueblood has written a powerful story that is slow to develop, but rich in images that make you stop in your tracks, mid-sentence, to reflect. I used to wonder why newspaper obituaries always insisted on naming the places of our births—as though, no matter how far we travel in this world, we are still defined by the towns from which we hail. By our beginnings. Even if they come in a vial.




		Sunday, June 28, 1998 THE MERCURY NEWS Separated at Birth Search for biological parents leads two women to journeys of self-discovery When you don’t know the story of where you come from, you can be anybody: the stolen daughter of a king, or the abandoned child of criminals on the run. Somewhere in the past, you’ve got a different name. A different identity. Had you been allowed to keep that name, that identity, you’d have a different life. Your future would be filled with other choices. The missing facts of birth lie at the heart of these books by West Coast writers. In “Somebody’s Baby” by Elaine Kagan, and “The Sperm Donor’s Daughter,” by Kathryn Trueblood, the need to know and see one’s birth parents is presented as a biological imperative. The main characters, both adult women, hunger after a memory that goes beyond a collection of life experiences. The memory they seek is cellular. “You just want to see a little piece of yourself, and you certainly can’t see that when you look at me” Margaret, the understanding adoptive mother, tells her grown daughter, Claudia, at the onset of her search in “Somebody’s Baby.” Claudia, a psychologist, has a jock husband, a sweet little girl, two doting adoptive parents, and yet, she’s haunted. She dreams of her birth mother. …this other mother who would never wear a moss-green lacy dress, like Margaret; this other mother, smiling behind the candles and the white roses, was wearing black. And she looked just like Claudia. She had light-brown wavy hair and was tall and thin, with a smattering of freckles; and rotten penmanship. It was hard to know how you could tell about her penmanship from a dream especially one where she didn’t write anything, but it was clear to Claudia that long night as she lay punching her pillow, that this other mother wrote just like her. And looked like her and talked like her. And this other mother, this dream mother, Claudia knew, was not a dream. Claudia has wavered for years about whether or not to search for her birth parents and is finally impelled to do so after reading a picture book to her 3-year-old daughter. Called “Are You My Mother” it is about a bird who hatches out of its egg and immediately waddles off on a search for its mother. Kagan has written a novel steeped in the issues of adoption. At times, it reads almost as a primer on how to effectively search for one’s birth parents. The author has done her research: You see Claudia file for her original birth certificate from Sacramento’s office of the state registrar. You follow her as she obtains consent-for-contact forms. You accompany her to the national agency that helps adopted children in their search. And ultimately, it’s a little dull and almost pragmatic. Especially after the raw, driven passions of the first riveting section that takes place in Kansas City, 1959, and tells the story of Jenny, Claudia’s birth mother. Jenny Jaffe is the Jewish daughter of well-to-do parents, a self-described “plain girl, a beige girl, a practically nondescript girl,” who is transformed overnight upon meeting a gas-pumping young drifter out on parole from a California prison. I can’t tell you what it was about William Cole McDonald, except everything. What I can tell you is that from the night of my seventeenth birthday until they destroyed us, I spent every waking moment I could with Will. It didn’t matter what I had to do or say— I did it or said it. Remember what it feels like to lose your desire for food because there’s no room left in your body for any appetite besides lust? That’s what Jenny and Will have. They also have a sweet appreciation for each other. He finds her beautiful and believes in her secret dream of becoming a dancer. She’s the only person to whom Will, a James Dean-like character with a penchant for fighting, can reveal himself and his painful past. It’s hardly a relationship built to last; in fact, they have so little in common that when her cold, impenetrable mother assures Jenny she’ll outgrow Will, the mature reader is left nodding in reluctant assent. But the two lovers never have a chance to find that out for themselves. In her senior year of high school, Jenny gets pregnant. She and Will make plans to elope, but he never shows up. Devastated by his betrayal and at the mercy of her mother, Jenny is forced to give her baby up for adoption. The memory of Will and Jenny’s passion haunts not only their lives, but the rest of the novel. Everything that follows is a letdown. By contrast, Claudia’s blandly-sculpted middle-class life in Los Angeles 30 years later and her inner struggle (should she search or shouldn’t she?) is almost boring by comparison. Kagan is a strong storyteller, with a smooth, breezy style that moves and bristles with lots of dialogue. But if you’re looking for a novel of ideas, reach instead for “The Sperm Donor’s Daughter.” The title story is a novella, a densely written piece told through the interior voices of two women. Nellie is an emotionally bruised woman haunted by the memory of her first and only boyfriend, Carson, who died in the Vietnam War. For years, she has perpetuated the subterfuge that Carson was the father of her child, Jess. The story begins as Jess, now grown, pregnant, and armed with some newly acquired knowledge, goes off in search of her real father: an anonymous sperm donor. With help from her mother, she makes the assumption that her father was a medical student: In those days, women were inseminated with fresh sperm so the procedure had to have taken place within two hours of ejaculation. All we had to do was find the closest medical school and call up the alumni association for the year books. As she flips through one of the books, she fixes “on his face in a matter of seconds.” Her mother does the same. “I found him so fast it was scary, but you can always find yourself on the page faster than your friends. The resemblance was that powerful.” At times, Jess’ search seems almost pathetic. She breaks into the man’s summer house on Lake Michigan with a butter knife, seeking clues to his relationships and personality. To him, she may be nothing more than a vial of sperm. But for Jess, he is the key: Her future is dimmed when the past is unknown. By the time father and daughter actually meet, the tensions are almost unbearably painful. Awaiting him in his examining room (she gets in on the ruse of a prenatal exam), Jess thinks: I almost want to put on the gown, let my father examine me so I can feel his hands upon me, as though there might be some similarity between how he would have touched me as a baby and how he would touch me now as a stranger. The full potential of technology’s ramifications appear suddenly, almost terrifyingly clear. Her book sets the stage for some confrontation of almost mythic proportions, reminiscent of Oedipus—that other child who never knew his father. Not that anything catastrophic happens in “The Sperm Donor’s Daughter.” After all, where Oedipus killed the old stranger on a narrow mountain pass without ever guessing his true identity, Jess knows her father’s name. And then a certain familiarity, that can only be called the wisdom of the body, makes itself known. “Are you sure you haven’t been in before?” her unsuspecting father asks Jess, looking up from her chart. “Maybe when you were a child?” “Not that I know,” she answers. “Well, you look familiar anyway,” he says. Trueblood has written a powerful story that is slow to develop, but rich in images that make you stop in your tracks, mid-sentence, to reflect. I used to wonder why newspaper obituaries always insisted on naming the places of our births—as though, no matter how far we travel in this world, we are still defined by the towns from which we hail. By our beginnings. Even if they come in a vial. Copyright 1998 Knight Ridder