Stephen Rowley writes with this unusual candor, and humility about a subject that remains surprisingly controversial. People with their birth families rarely question or ponder the profundity that comes with adoption, being raised hopefully with a family that loves you yet is not related to you by blood, and who may not look like you. As Rowley brilliantly demonstrates, a sense of searching can come to said individuals, a wanting to trace back their roots. He mixes objective reasonings as a bonafide psychotherapist and author, and his own experience as an adoptee to create a rich, dynamic, and somewhat guiding work addressing these issues, and the ramifications both positive and negative that can arise from said issues.
He cites the zen quote ‘The coin lost in the river is found in the river’ as an encapsulation of the themes explored in The Lost Coin: A Memoir of Adoption and Destiny. “I wrote this book to share my life’s quest to answer one question: Who am I? The mysteries of my adoption and the lack of clarity about my identity led me to search for my birth parents for sixty years. This is the true story of the people, events, and twists of fate that shaped my search and me. I’ve included the real names of members of my family, as well as some friends, colleagues, and public figures.
However, I changed the names and locations of my birth parents, their families, and a few others out of respect for their well-deserved privacy,” Rowley writes, at the beginning of the book. “…I often wonder whether other adoptees share the deep-seated drive to discover their birth parents that I felt from the day Mom and Dad told me I’d been adopted. Do other adoptees obsess about their identities and the circumstances of their adoption? By what forces of nature, or fate, does anyone become who they are?
These are the questions of philosophers, analysts, astrologers, and seekers. These are the questions that have framed my life. Beyond the details of my biological ancestry, I became curious about the long-term psychological impact of adoption. This memoir is a part of that exploration—the interplay of inner and outer, and the steps along the way. In writing about my own life, I hope to give voice and encouragement to other adoptees, long silenced and frustrated by laws and protocols that have kept this information from us.”
AMAZON: https://www.amazon.com/Lost-Coin-Memoir-Adoption-Destiny/dp/1685031765
Rowley admits when he doesn’t always have solidified answers. The book is as much his own coming to terms with adoption as it is an insightful narrative of the profundities of adoption. There’s never the sense Rowley allows the personal – or the professional – to mix not under intellectual auspices. He’s not afraid of getting emotional about contentious subject matter, but it’s always allowed in service of something that doesn’t entirely have to do with himself. As someone well-versed in psychology and psychotherapy, he’s able to keep a certain amount of integrity within the presentational qualities of the text. That’s something, particularly when he has a strong personal stake to the material, to be seriously commended.
Garth Thomas