Bus Books: Blog 2
By Arla Shephard — August 13, 2008
waiting in line at the ferry terminal (I know, I wasn't on a bus, but
ferries are basically giant buses that travel over water.), I did what I
usually do -- I searched the covers of books people held, looking for a
title to catch my eye.
One girl standing next to me was devouring a little novel called The Mistress's Daughter.
The girl on the front cover just looked so forlorn that I immediately
wondered what the book was about and why the person who held it was
reading it.
As it turns out, The Mistress's Daughter isn't a novel at all, but a memoir from A.M. Homes, an American novelist and screenwriter, best known for her novel This Book Will Save Your Life.
In
her memoir, Homes, who was adopted at a young age, details the painful
reunion (and ensuing events) she endured with her biological parents,
as she uncovered her parents' sordid history and her own
beginnings:
"Christmas
1992, I go home to Washington, D.C. 'We have something to tell you,' my
mother says. 'Someone is looking for you.' After a lifetime spent in a
virtual witness-protection program, I've been exposed. I am the
mistress's daughter. My birth mother was young, unmarried, and my
father older with a family of his own," she writes.
As the
story goes, Homes' birth mother, Ellen, became involved with a married
man when she was a teenager, who then dumped her when she became
pregnant. Swell guy. When Homes is in her thirties, her birth mother
seeks her out, asking her to "take good care of me." Homes suspects
that Ellen just wants to reconnect with daddy dearest.
Homes
eventually meets her biological father, Norman, but his empty promises
leave her feeling even more conflicted – Norman tells Homes he will
introduce her to his family, her half-siblings, only to renege on the
deal after a paternity test proves he is her dad. Ellen, meanwhile,
imposes herself on Homes' life in a number of ways, stalking her and
begging her for a kidney. Ellen's eventual death sends Homes into a
whirlwind of confusing, conflicting feelings.
The Mistress' Daughter appears to be an exploration of themes like identity and belonging,
framed in the story of an adult woman who still deals emotionally with
her adoption.
As Amy Tan, author of The Joy Luck Club, puts it, "The Mistress's Daughter has
the beguiling pull of mystery, memory and surprise... It lays bare
those questions about our essential selves: How did we become who we
are? What elements of inheritance, neglect, accident and choice gave us
our confused identity, our quirky personality, our urges to be wholly
loved?"
Homes, who wrote for the TV drama The L Word,
has the reputation for being a private person. "What can I tell you
about my family life? I have one child, I live in New York City, I have
a dog and, you know, a really busy life," she said in an interview with
bookpage.com, where she details the experience of writing her memoir. "One
of the hardest things about it was taking something that was so
emotional and psychological and finding words for it. It's an emotional
experience that's very primitive. It's the basic experience of being
separated from your parents," she said.
a novel, where threads are likely to be wrapped up, Homes'
memoir probably offers little closure for Homes and others seeking the
answers to questions like 'Who am I?' But that's how life is, and Homes
acknowledges that, even coming to accept the fact that her birth
father's family might see him in an entirely diffferent light:
you grow up you just realize that life is more complicated and people
are more complicated than they first appear, which is kind of a great
thing and kind of hard to deal with. It's hard to reconcile and accept
that people who are capable of great things also do horrible things.
But the sophisticated approach is to realize that a person can be
different and behave differently in different situations."
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