In Decem­ber 1992 A. M. Homes’s adop­tive par­ents tell her that her bio­log­i­cal moth­er has reached out via the lawyer who had arranged the pri­vate adop­tion in Decem­ber 1961. ​“After a life­time spent in a vir­tu­al wit­ness-pro­tec­tion pro­gram, I’ve been exposed. I get up know­ing one thing about myself: I am the mistress’s daughter.” 

This excep­tion­al jour­ney for iden­ti­ty is an exhaus­tive emo­tion­al and phys­i­cal search to unrav­el the mys­tery that has enveloped Homes like a cloud for thir­ty-one years. We share the author’s relief and angst at each step of enlight­en­ment. In accor­dance with her bio­log­i­cal mother’s wish­es she is placed with a Jew­ish fam­i­ly. Her bio­log­i­cal her­itage, she dis­cov­ers, is a mix­ture of Jews and Catholics, of all degrees of inter­mar­riage and obser­vance. This only adds to a life­time of con­fu­sion over tra­di­tion­al Jew­ish val­ues vers­es sec­u­lar life in her adop­tive home. We learn of the first moments with her new ​“real” par­ents, the heart wrench­ing con­fes­sions of her adop­tive moth­er, the too late mater­nal crav­ings of her bio­log­i­cal moth­er, her agree­ment to under­go DNA test­ing, rev­e­la­tions of cen­turies old genealog­i­cal records, legal inquiries, rejec­tion, and the ulti­mate emer­gence to peace of mind. 

Writ­ing with com­pelling hon­esty the author ful­ly engages the read­er. We begin to under­stand the dimen­sions of iden­ti­ty search­es of adopt­ed chil­dren and praise those who weath­er such a journey.