'I feel like we would have been best friends'Before my book comes out May 5th, a conversation with my sister Kathy—about the DNA test she almost didn't take, the emotional impacts of adoption, and grieving a mom she never got to meet.
We’re a little less than two weeks out from the release of my memoir, My Mother’s Daughter: Finding Myself in My Family’s Fractured Past—and what better way to count down the days than with a conversation with my sister Kathy. In case you’re new around here, my book is about how a DNA test connected me with Kathy several years ago. The only reason I took the test was in hopes of finding her. I knew that my mom had gotten pregnant as a teenager in the Midwest in the sixties, twenty years before I was born. I also knew that she had been sent away to a home for unwed mothers, where she placed baby for adoption. There was so much that I didn’t understand, though, and after finding Kathy, I set out to understand what had happened back in 1965. I learned that our mom was one of over a million women who in the pre-Roe era were sent away and coerced into adoption. She was pulled into a racist and sexist system designed to turn “bad girls” into proper women, wives, and mothers. It was meant to control women’s sexuality, promote marriage, and bolster the white nuclear-family norm. The book tells that story of digging into the past, but it also tells the story of coming together with Kathy. So many people who have read early copies of the book have said things like, “Wow, Kathy seems so great.” She is. Which is why I’m so happy to share our conversation above, so that you can hear from her directly—in her own voice, and in her own words. We talked about why she decided to take a DNA test, her grief over never getting to meet our mother, what it was like for her to read my book, how her perspective has changed on the impacts of adoption, and what you don’t get to see of her in the book, like her K-pop obsession (stick around for her endorsement of Felix Yongbok Lee and an explanation of fandom terminology like “bias-wrecker”). Pre-orders mean everything—EVERYTHING!—for setting a book up for success. Will you take a minute to pre-order your copy now? These last few days before publication are crucial and your support means so much.Don’t miss these upcoming book events—I would love to see you there:May 5: Launch day! Mrs. Dalloway’s in Berkeley, California with Alexis Madrigal. Reserve a spot here. May 7: Books Are Magic in Brooklyn, New York with Irin Carmon. Register here. I’ll also be doing a special pre-launch event April 28th at Book Society in Berkeley with the novelist Kate Schatz.
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