Father Unknown
"Father Unknown"
by Lesley Pearse |
"Father Unknown" by Lesley Pearse
This an adoption related novel, and it has to be one of the best works of fiction I have read. It is about a girl named Daisy who, after her adoptive mother dies, sets out to find her birth mother. She is very aware that she does not want to upset her adoptive father whom she loves very much. She has a younger brother and a sister (twins) who are her adoptive parents' biological children.
The story tells of Daisy's search for her birth mother and how it is affecting her and her relationship with her adoptive family (interwined with the fact that her younger sister thinks she is an interloper into the family and the problems that causes), and her birth mother's story of growing up and the circumstances of the conception. It is a not unusual story of boy-talking-girl-into-sex, which was the girl's first experience, and the boy disappears before she learns she is pregnant.
The story also follows Daisy's birth mother's life following the loss of her daughter to adoption and what happens to her and her family.
The story trundles along nicely with the search and the reunion and then has a
massive twist at the end, which you just
don't see coming, and it is just brilliant.
What I really like about this novel, is that it does not just cover adoption, but includes the characters' other traits and lives, and how they adapt to their situations. I would highly recommend this novel to both adoptees and birth mothers. The only criticism that I have of the book is that the father's background and what he was like were not covered at all.
Publisher: Penguin Books, 2002
ISBN: 0141006471
© Anna M. Brown
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