- Hardcover: 288 pages
- Publisher: Harmony Books; 1st edition (Nov 1998)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0517707551
- ISBN-13: 978-0517707555
- Product Dimensions: 22.9 x 16.5 x 3 cm
- Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 2,558,206 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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More About the Author
Product Description
Product Description
May the Circle Be Unbroken is both a poignant memoir of a woman who reunited with a child she gave up for adoption and a no-nonsense book that gives readers an intelligent and well-informed approach to adoption. The two are woven seamlessly into a complex and engaging story that is, in fact, many stories from many people that form a complete picture of the varied and often fulfilling experience of adoption.
In the 1960s, when she was an unmarried college sophomore, Lynn Franklin surrendered her newborn son for adoption. Using her own story as a point of departure, Franklin examines the changing face of adoption and explores the uncertainties and emotions that surround it with rare honesty and perception.
Moving and enlightened, May the Circle Be Unbroken will prove invaluable for readers concerned with the practical, emotional, and legal aspects of adoption, whether they are thinking of making an adoption plan for their child or hoping to be chosen as suitable parents for someone else's child. Franklin demystifies adoption and offers essential comfort to those who have felt, firsthand, the impact of adoption on their lives. She has dialogues with children of adoption who discuss the struggle to come to terms with their feelings of loss and abandonment and the difficulty of forging an identity without knowing their biological heritage. She gives equal time to those who became parents through an abundance of human affection rather than by biology, by audition rather than chance.
Franklin covers the changing face of adoption and virtually every possible form of adoption, but, perhaps most important, she speaks to adoptees wondering if they should search for their mothers and to women who have relinquished a child and are wondering if they are emotionally able to reconnect. While her own powerful story anchors the book, it is her voice as a birth mother that will distinguish this book from others on the subject. It will also resonate emotionally for people who have no individual experience of adoption, but who, like any of us, struggle with the universal issues of loss, identity, and personal reconciliation.
Since finding her son, Franklin has come to know his wife and children, who also have become an important part of her life. In so doing, she has closed one of life's most precious circles.
In the 1960s, when she was an unmarried college sophomore, Lynn Franklin surrendered her newborn son for adoption. Using her own story as a point of departure, Franklin examines the changing face of adoption and explores the uncertainties and emotions that surround it with rare honesty and perception.
Moving and enlightened, May the Circle Be Unbroken will prove invaluable for readers concerned with the practical, emotional, and legal aspects of adoption, whether they are thinking of making an adoption plan for their child or hoping to be chosen as suitable parents for someone else's child. Franklin demystifies adoption and offers essential comfort to those who have felt, firsthand, the impact of adoption on their lives. She has dialogues with children of adoption who discuss the struggle to come to terms with their feelings of loss and abandonment and the difficulty of forging an identity without knowing their biological heritage. She gives equal time to those who became parents through an abundance of human affection rather than by biology, by audition rather than chance.
Franklin covers the changing face of adoption and virtually every possible form of adoption, but, perhaps most important, she speaks to adoptees wondering if they should search for their mothers and to women who have relinquished a child and are wondering if they are emotionally able to reconnect. While her own powerful story anchors the book, it is her voice as a birth mother that will distinguish this book from others on the subject. It will also resonate emotionally for people who have no individual experience of adoption, but who, like any of us, struggle with the universal issues of loss, identity, and personal reconciliation.
Since finding her son, Franklin has come to know his wife and children, who also have become an important part of her life. In so doing, she has closed one of life's most precious circles.
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
I like the way Franklin weaves the experiences of each side of the triad into a seamless whole. I've read most every book on adoption in print, and this is one of the best. My one criticism is that I think she tends to underplay the trauma inherent in giving up a child. As a birthmom in an open adoption, I can say with all honesty the grief never leaves me.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
As a Korean adopted woman who was adopted into the U.S. in the 1960s, I also experienced similar but different shame & secrecy that muffles & stifles members of the adoption triad. I commend Ms. Franklin's courage & willingness to share her story of loss & triumph, so that others may learn & understand birth mothers, adoptees & also adoptive parents in the adoption triad experience. I hope that Ms. Franklin will continue writing, speaking & educating others about the joy & love, as well as the pain, sorrow & loss of adoption.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
As a successfully reunited adoptee who is close to her parents and her birthmother, I find that adoption literature often lacks full perspective. Adoptees, birth parents and adoptive parents are portrayed in many cases as beleaguered heroes/heroines, pathetic victims or manipulative and uncaring villians.
"May the Circle be Unbroken" provides a more realistic view, fully considering what each member of the triad experiences at the time of placement and at the time of search and (possibly) reunion. It presents a clear, mature and sane description of what one might encounter during different stages of the triad's lifetime. The birthmother author presents a fully-realized description of her own agony at relinquishment without slipping into self-pity. She has a strong grasp on the feelings of the adoptee and adoptive parent as well, yet she acknowledges that everyone's experience is different. Theories (such as the "Primal Wound") are presented as conjecture and possibility rather than fact.
The firm grounding provided by this clear-eyed presentation could be extraordinarily useful to help birthmothers to heal, to aid adoptive parents in understanding the challenges they may face and to prepare all three "sides" to cope with the unexpected joys and traumas assoociated with search and reunion. Franklin helps each person touched by adoption by arming them with a full perspective and letting them know that they are not alone.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
a well-researched and informative book
Thanks for a well-researched, well-written, and very informative book. As an adoptive parent, I have been looking for something like this to give my family and friends that would... Read more
Published on 28 Jan 1999
Inspiring and moving
Anyone interested in the complex subject of adoption will find plenty of practical, factual information in this book. But the facts you can find elsewhere. Read more
Published on 22 Dec 1998
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