Beyond Happily Ever After

Rating:
Summary: A compelling look inside the adoption debate
Review: "Beyond Happily Ever After" was a gripping and provocative read. The author, Sally McNamara, gave a baby up for adoption in the conservative 50's and was then found by him in the more lenient 90's. This is her tale of loss and redemption.

She takes the reader on an in-depth first hand journey into the trauma surrounding being single and pregnant in the 50's to the joy of having her son find her in the 90's and the affect it has on her and her family.

Sally does an excellent job of detailing how traumatic it was to be a un-wed mother in her early 20's, sent away from family, to live in her final trimester of pregnancy with a group of anonymous unwed mothers trying to avoid family shame.

Unlike other adoption books, which are typically how to's, Ms. McNamara's first hand experience is compelling and intriguing. It presents a side to adoption that one doesn't see often. The Mother's loss and guilt.

Of special note is the new relationship between the two families, the son, who views himself as abandoned, and Sally, who feels that she did the best she could. Just when one thinks the book will in fact be "Happily Ever After" a new facet of human relationship is introduced.

I read this book in 2 nights and had trouble putting it down. A must read for any family, who has experience with adoption.

Rating:
Summary: Disappointing
Review: After reading the other reviews, I was looking forward to reading this book. Sad to say, I was very disappointed. I too gave up my child in the 50's and have reunited with him now that he's in his 40's. I was hoping for much more content on the feelings that the author experienced in reuniting with her son.

Instead, I got pages and pages about family "get-togethers" in which the author went on and on about who was there (grandchildren, wives, daughters, daughters-in-laws, sons, husband, etc.).

Moreover, being a professional writer, I felt the book was poorly written and needed a great deal of editing.

Considering there are other books on the market for the same price that are 300% better (Primal Wound, for example), I felt it was money that could have been better spent elsewhere.

Rating:
Summary: Honest description of an amazing experience
Review: As a writer, former actress and public health nurse, I'm asking what was it like to be an unmarried woman in America during the 1950's. Those haylcon days, after World War II, building new lives, raising the baby-boom generation and forgetting the past? This memoir takes the reader to the hidden truth of the status of women at that time, women still buried in the oppressive mores of the past. The author tells her story of being a single mother who had to compromise her biology and break her own heart by giving up her newborn for adoption. The shame connected with illegitimate pregnancies ran deep, intolerance of women's right to choose was deeply ingrained in our culture. Using a journalistic style, McNamara's voice is as honest as any I've read, portraying the political-social climate of the fifties, closer to Victorian values than the social mores of today. Her factual account of her journey through pregnancy, banishment to a home for unwed mothers, the birth of her baby and subsequent bonding, the loss of her infant to always unknown parents is a close to the bone, honest comentary of her own experience and the legion of women who found themselves in similar circumstances. It is also a cautionary tale for today. The primary theme of the book is loss and redemption, the loss of the mother-child bond, (the most primal and profound of all human relationships,) and redemption in the reunification of that bond. The guilt and loss she describes in a wealth of detail re-emerges when her infant son, later if life, is able to "find" his biological mother due to a new more liberating climate and the miracles of technology. A rich two-family, (McNamara's and her son's) story emerges, as the intracies, the glory and the difficulties are recorded in her journal. The resolution of how these very caring, courageous people under thorny circumstances learn to adapt and become interwoven in earch other's lives is powerfully told without sentimentality. People who have given up babies for adoption, adopted children and adoptive parents will find a rich source of information on the dymanics of reunion in this memoir. Having lives through most of the 20th century myself, I think this book should be a must read for anyone involved in the adoption process and for all who have an interest in women and the family in the twentieth century. In spite of the enormous changes since the 60's I look at the current political-social climate, (circa 2001) and see clearly that there are strong conservative forces that would take women back to these earlier times.

Rating:
Summary: Women's history now compelling in light of new admin. in DC
Review: As a writer, former actress and public health nurse, I'm asking what was it like to be an unmarried woman in America during the 1950's. Those haylcon days, after World War II, building new lives, raising the baby-boom generation and forgetting the past? This memoir takes the reader to the hidden truth of the status of women at that time, women still buried in the oppressive mores of the past. The author tells her story of being a single mother who had to compromise her biology and break her own heart by giving up her newborn for adoption. The shame connected with illegitimate pregnancies ran deep, intolerance of women's right to choose was deeply ingrained in our culture. Using a journalistic style, McNamara's voice is as honest as any I've read, portraying the political-social climate of the fifties, closer to Victorian values than the social mores of today. Her factual account of her journey through pregnancy, banishment to a home for unwed mothers, the birth of her baby and subsequent bonding, the loss of her infant to always unknown parents is a close to the bone, honest comentary of her own experience and the legion of women who found themselves in similar circumstances. It is also a cautionary tale for today. The primary theme of the book is loss and redemption, the loss of the mother-child bond, (the most primal and profound of all human relationships,) and redemption in the reunification of that bond. The guilt and loss she describes in a wealth of detail re-emerges when her infant son, later if life, is able to "find" his biological mother due to a new more liberating climate and the miracles of technology. A rich two-family, (McNamara's and her son's) story emerges, as the intracies, the glory and the difficulties are recorded in her journal. The resolution of how these very caring, courageous people under thorny circumstances learn to adapt and become interwoven in earch other's lives is powerfully told without sentimentality. People who have given up babies for adoption, adopted children and adoptive parents will find a rich source of information on the dymanics of reunion in this memoir. Having lives through most of the 20th century myself, I think this book should be a must read for anyone involved in the adoption process and for all who have an interest in women and the family in the twentieth century. In spite of the enormous changes since the 60's I look at the current political-social climate, (circa 2001) and see clearly that there are strong conservative forces that would take women back to these earlier times.

Rating:
Summary: a touching and thoughtful memoir from a birth mother
Review: I found Ms. McNamara's story of her reunion with the son she gave up for adoption and the aftermath on all families involved incredibly moving. McNamara illustrates the complex, double standard climate that pervaded the 1950s. Her situation was one in which her wishes as a birth mother were ignored and will demonstrate to those in the 90s the beauty of open adoptions in which birth mothers actually have a voice in choosing who will raise the child they are giving up. I appreciated her descriptions of how the reunion impacted every relationship in her life, those with her children, sisters, and her husband. The reunion between adoptee and birth parent cannot be simply seen as the coming together of two people. As McNamara poignantly shows, each person in the web of a family is touched by the reunion. Happily Ever After also served to remind me how far we have come in our culture in terms of acceptance of out-of -wedlock children and their mothers. As the mother of a 2 month old baby, I found McNamara's story heart-wrenching.

Rating:
Summary: A journey through the heart
Review: i must admit i am neither a mother nor a woman of the 50's but through Ms.McNamara's powerful writing I felt as if it was me going through the blissfull ups and tragic downs of Sally's life. Through the book i got an intimate view into Sally's life and the life of her family. This is an emotionally charged book....have your tissues ready.

Rating:
Summary: Not recommended
Review: I was disappointed in this book primarily because it was Sally McNamara's tribute to herself as a birthmother. I felt that her reasons for writing the book as well as the way in which her book was written screams out "narcissism". In addition it was poorly written and poorly edited. I found myself sympathizing with her relinquished son who was not being heard. At their first meeting she went on ad nauseam about her education, how bright she was and her school activities while her son awaited the story of his birth and some validation.

Rating:
Summary: Honest description of an amazing experience
Review: Sally McNamara writes honestly of a searing experience in her young adulthood, pregnancy as a single woman in the 50's, bearing the child alone and then surrendering him for adoption through a major New York City adoption agency. She sets the scene well and recalls the stigma of the 50's for unwed mothers. The secrecy, lies and shame are all well documented. Contrasting the early part of the story is the reunion in the more tolerant 90's where a more mature Sally, married with three grown children of her own, grapples with the emotional rollercoaster of a reunion with a son she had last seen as a two week old baby. She tells a tale of courage and determination where she puts the welfare of the baby first, and then is confronted later with rage on the part of the surrendered son at his "disposability". The two generations, products of their times, have very different approaches to the surrender-adoption-reunion process.

Rating:
Summary: A Sincere Cry of the Heart
Review: This book is so authentically heart-felt that, even if the reader has not had the adoption experience personally, reading this author's thoughts and feelings on one of the most important and frightening things that ever happened to her, is valuable and deeply affective. Of course each mother's reactions and responses to having a child are different but this author clearly delineates the universal and central beauty of motherhood: love. In her most interesting story of birth, surrender and reunion love shines. For 38 years the ember of a mother's love for her first child lies in this author's heart and its power gets the people written of through a difficult, thorough-going life change.

Rating:
Summary: An emotional roller coaster
Review: This is a must read if you have anything to due with the adoption process. This book looks at all angles of this emotional time.

How does the mother feel? How does the child feel? How do the new brothers and sisters feel? It's all in this book!

You'll be taken on a life long journey and you'll feel the emotions on the way. Make sure you have enough time, because you won't want to put this book down.

Having been in a similar situation, this book really hit home. It helped me understand what I was feeling. I highly recommend it!