Hole In My Heart: memoir and report from the fault lines of adoption

HOLE IN MY HEART is the compelling story of a mother separated from her child by adoption in the Sixties and the state-imposed secrecy that keeps them apart. Defying convention, Lorraine Dusky reunites with her daughter in the early Eighties when such reunions were rare, and in the process becomes a staunch advocate for reform of America's antiquated adoption system. The author gives an inside look on the emotional turmoil following reunion for both mother and daughter. Dusky, with her award-winning journalism background, deftly weaves in crucial psychological research that places her personal heartbreak in a larger context, and illuminates the hard truths that are at the center of every adoption-loss, guilt, abandonment and an incomplete sense of identity. Her daughter, the adoptee with two families, also speaks of the complications and uncertainties that infuse her life. A birth mother's story you will not forget.