Thursday, January 19, 2012
Book Talk: Found: A Memoir by Jennifer Lauck
Taking a swerving diversion off the Book Talk path, I am using this time to speak a bit about a "web tour" that has been orchestrated by Lori, an adoptive mother and a writer. Lori, via her website, coordinates book tours where interested bloggers sign up, read the book and then--on a designated day--review the book.
Found was chosen. The tour posts began Friday, continued Sunday and were done by Tuesday.
To read for yourselves, click here. Beware. Some of these posts are not fun to read. Others are simply stunning. To save yourself a whole lotta of cruising around, I list my favorite blogs here:
By Adoptees
Neither Here Nor There
Insert Bad Movie Title Here
Rhonda Rae on Examiner Book Tours
Birthmothers
Letters to Ms. Feverfew
A Birth Mother's Path
Those Who Adopt & Experts in Adoption Counseling
Zeina
Parenting Your Adopted Child
Mommies Here
Too Many Fish to Fry
Mommy Musings
Production, Not Reproduction
I want to note that of the twenty bloggers who took on Found, only three were adoptees, two were birth-mothers and the rest--15--were adoptive parents, people who are advocates of adoption and experts who are part of adoption placement.
This is pretty typical of the demographics for this type of conversation and while I would have something to say about this, under less formal circumstances than this blog, I will keep my opinion of the demographics to myself.
I will say this tour transcends issues of "good" or "bad" reviews and goes to the essence of what it is to write a memoir. One writer seemed to find it vital that I provide my "sources" for information in Found, and this writer cannot be faulted for the request. I've had similar requests, especially from people who are so stirred by the writing they are bent on proving me and it wrong in some way.
Let's do a little primer on memoir: Memoir is not biography, autobiography, journalism, novel, poem and/or critical paper. Memoir is a unique genre which is defining itself with each book published.
Memoir is memory explored via literary devices and memoir is the truth of the writer at the moment the book was written. Memoir is, at the core, lived experience mulched for meaning. The reader of memoir is not the writer of memoir, although often a reader will become entangled in emotional wires that lurk within their own psyche. The reader is, and can only be, a voyeur. The reader stays in the relationship with a memoir for many reasons but I believe this is the primary one: the reader sees the writer working to get to the meaning of lived experience and in that effort, the reader is able to then derive some meaning of their own which can be applied to similar experiences.
Effort is the point. The memoir writer makes her best effort to be truthful, she struggles with truth and works hard to find meaning.
In Found, I know I did my best. I wrote my truth and it is a powerful truth that touches many. I get emails everyday. The person I hoped it would touch most deeply was the adoptee. I was changed by the zigzaggedy path I took to find my way home and I hoped that perhaps there would be something in my experience that would help another adoptee see herself and himself. 
You see, to be an adopted person is to live a lie and many of us are asleep to the lie. We are the living Sleeping Beauties who live and work and love among you. We live as if we are part of the greater whole but within so many of us, there is a gaping wound only we can feel and a few others can sneak a peak at now and again. We are not found yet. We are lost and we are angry and we are sad. But we'll never tell you this is the way it is. We will become Steve Jobs, wow you with our super powered ambition, we will blend, fold, talk the talk and walk the walk, but deep down--the hunger and the sadness is complete. It owns us.
I wrote Found for you--adoptee. I wrote it like a little map to help you find your own way home and I wrote in a language you would understand--the language of the heart.
In the end, I had a global comment about the weblog book tour and placed it on the site where I felt it would be best heard. I did not know Judy before this tour and now I do. If you want to read it and post your own comments, please do. Click here.
1 Comments:
Jennifer, THANK YOU for writing FOUND. It is very powerful and so wonderful to read for fellow adoptees. Just think, there are 6 million of us and so few voices. Thank you for being courageous and thank God for your talent of writing!!! (((Hugs))))
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