Ithaka: A Daughter's Memoir of Being Found: Amazon.co.uk: Sarah Saffian: Books

Synopsis

A beautifully wrought memoir by a young woman whose life changes dramatically when she is tracked down by two people who are at once both strangers and her most intimate relations: her biological parents. . One Friday morning, twenty-three-year-old Sarah Saffian was leaving for work when the phone rang. Sarah? a womans voice asked. My name is Hannah Morgan. I think Im your birth mother. So begins this riveting memoir, which tells the story of how a young woman was found by her biological parents. Drawing on the letters they exchanged as well as on her private journal, Sarah Saffian tells the powerful story of her adoption, the death of her adoptive mother when Sarah was only six, a childhood with her loving adoptive father and stepmother, and the sudden appearance of her birth parents whom she has never known. The book raises thorny and important quesitons: What is a family? What does it mean to be a daughter? What does it mean to be a parent? What are the lines between parental concern, control and intrusion? What sorts of relationships can adopted children have with their biological parents? The book culminates with Sarahs finally meeting her birth family.

It leaves us with the question she and her birth parents face: Where do we go from here? Hello, is Sarah Saffian there? asks the voice on the other end of the line. My name is Hannah Morgan. I think Im your birth mother. So begins this powerful memoir by a young woman whose life changes dramatically when she receives a phone call from someone at once a stranger and her most intimate relation. Saffians riveting story of painful self-discovery and newfound joy is unique in its reversal of the usual adoption narrative: here, the biological parents seek out the adoptee. Weaving together letters, journal entries, memories and relections, Saffian tells of her adoption, her adoptive mothers death six years later, and her upbringing in a loving family. She learns that her biological parents ended up marrying and having other children. She is thus faced with an entire family to whom she is genetically linked. Saffians boldly honest account reaches a moving climax with their reunion, three years after the first phone call. Along the way, it raises thorny questions: What is a family? Can we have more than one? What is the line between parental concern and intrusion?

Is it hypocritical to be a pro-choice adoptee? How do nature and nurture work together to form a persons identity? By turns earnest and playful, Ithica: A Daughters Memoir of Being Found is sure to touch readers everywhere who have grappled with who they are. Sarah Saffian is a former reporter for the New York Daily News and has also written for the Village Voice, Interview, Harpers Bazaar, and Mirabella. She holds a B. A. from Brown University and an M. F. A. from Columbia University, and lives in her native New York City.

From the Author

A personal overview
During the first conversation that begins ITHAKA, my memoir of being an adoptee who was found by my birth parents, Hannah explained that after surrendering me, she and my birth father had ended up marrying and having three other children. An entire group to whom I was fully biologically related was thrust upon me. My adoptive mother had died when I was six and my father and his second wife, whom I considered Mom, had had two children together. So in a sense, I was all at once placed in limbo between two "normal," nuclear families. Hannah's out-of-the-blue phone call threw me into a tailspin. Such abrupt contact from people who were strangers and yet profoundly intimate stirred up emotions in me, some latent, some never before expressed. I decided to come to know them gradually, solely through letters. What I didn't anticipate was that three years would pass before I was ready to meet face-to-face. The book spans from Hannah's phone call, through our correspondence, to our eventual reunion. I incorporate some of the letters, weaving excerpts chronologically through an examination of my turbulent inner life during this three-year period, flashbacks to childhood memories, and discussions of related issues such as adoption laws, search techniques, support networks, abortion, news stories and twins. The title ITHAKA, the name of Odysseus' homeland, illustrates that this memoir is about my grappling with the multi-dimensional definitions of "home" along my own odyssey, and my discovery that the journey itself may be more important than the arrival at the destination. While this book is a telling of my specific story, its concepts family, identity, privacy, abandonment, connection, motherhood, nature and nurture are universal.

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Painful but necessary reading for birthparents 24 Aug 1999

By A Customer

Format:Hardcover

I finally read Ithaka, after having it sitting on my shelf for months. The subject is difficult for me, as a birthmother who searched for her son and was rejected. Now, I wish I had read it before making any contact, and would advise any birthparents in search to do likewise.

Sarah Saffian is a fine and elegant writer, who as many previous reviewers have noted, grew up with money and comfort, and was found by the "perfect" birthparents. It is indeed hard to understand her reluctance to meet them--but the pain she suffered because of the contact is real, and I often cringed as I read what she felt, thinking that my son may have felt similar pain and disorientation at my contact.

Search and reunion is not a soap-opera nor a talk show--although much of what passes for wisdom in adoption reform groups and literature would make one think it was! Not all adoptees, nor all birthparents, are eager to be found--and those that are still must make huge adjustments to integrate the lost ones into their lives.

I hope that my son will find this book, and read it, and know that he is not alone in his fear and confusion at having "the dead" rise again as I did. I hope that all searching birthparents will read this book, not to be discouraged, but to stretch their minds and hearts with empathy for the adoptee, and the stresses that reunion can bring to some. I have seen many birthparents go into reunion expecting that the adoptee's life has somehow been on hold since the surrender, just waiting for the birthmother to return and pick up emotionally where they left off, as if a whole lifetime of family relationships were irrelevant. Some support groups encourage this kind of thinking, by pandering to what the members want to believe, rather than what is, and taking a very one-sided and one-dimensional view of the whole complex issue of reunion. "Ithaka" makes us look at other possibilites--and that is ultimately better and more healing than unrealistic expectations and cartoon scenarios of reunion bliss. Sarah Saffian had performed a useful service for birthparents by writing her story, even though reading it sometimes hurt, and sometimes frustrated and annoyed.

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A true real-life story of the endless bounds of family 23 Aug 1999

I read this book after hearing Sarah Saffian tell her story on television. (The Leeza Show) I have no direct way to relate to what she has gone through. I am not adopted, yet the way she writes this book, anyone can posess the capacity to understand and read with a vaguely familiar sense of our own reality, simply because we all have our own version family. Whatever "family" means to the reader comes to the focus of contemplation and the realization that those who are most dear to us are always there for us. As Sarah endures her own self-discovery through the process of being found by her "other" family, she reveals such insight in the telling of her journey, that any reader, adopted or not, can truly understand.

surprisingly candid and true-to-life 18 Aug 1999

While each and every person has a different story, the circumstances are eerily similar when talking to adoptees. Saffian's "Ithaka" is something I turned to when I was contacted by my biomom. From my reaction to the first time I was contacted by my her, to my anticipation of seeing her face for the first time; from hearing friends' stories about their adoptions and reunions, to struggling with the fear that my parents would feel abandoned and betrayed if I sought out my bioparents - this book helps us realize that we are no more alone in our thoughts and fears than we are walking down a crowded avenue. How many others, I wonder, have turned to this book for answers, much as I did? And how unfair it would be to say my reaction is wrong, or the author's reaction is wrong, because the two are not consistent? While some of my reactions have been different from hers, I am amazed by what I read... and how nicely she can relate publicly such an intimate and personal story. I turned every page with anxiety and felt her actual reunion with her bioparents seemed anticlimatic. Upon reflection, her sparse description and the small number of pages she dedicated to the actual reunion, I wonder if it was too personal to commit to print, or if she went through the reunion in a fog, or if she just realized that her adoption was not a colossal event, but a mere fact of life. At any rate, I think it's a must read for anyone trying to find themselves in the process of being found. Likewise, I feel it is a great read for anyone outside the adoption community.