My Fathers’ Daughter
Publication date/ Length: 2009 / 288 pages
Synopsis (from Booklist): Following her mother’s death in childbirth—and the erroneous notation of her father’s death as well—Pool was adopted by a white couple and transplanted from Eritrea. She eventually grew up in middle-class comfort in England, missing the hardships, deprivation, and war in Eritrea. But she also grew up with the fantasy of many adopted children of someday being reclaimed by the birth family, as well as the guilt of being curious about her birth family and seeming ungrateful of the adopted family. In Pool’s case, there were the additional layers of differences in race and nationality. Still, when a biological brother contacted her, she wavered for 10 years before returning the contact. At nearly 30 years old, Pool returned to Eritrea to meet her family and reconnect with the culture of her birth.
Review: I really enjoyed this memoir! My sister loaned it to me a few weeks ago, and I couldn’t help but be curious since my niece was adopted from Ethiopia, and I can’t help but wonder what her journey of selfhood will be like. She is only two and so has no need to consider the concept of “identity” yet. Her sunny, confident little spirit is so enamoured with ants and flowers and music and dancing and beads, she really has no time to contemplate questions like, “Who am I?” 
But, eventually I imagine she will ask the sorts of questions that make adolescence so difficult for us all… and I hope her search is only made richer as a result of her two countries and not more complicated.
Hannah Pool is very generous with the reader as she shares her own heroine’s journey to discover her origins. Her history is inescapably painful, since it includes a birth mother who died an hour after Hannah’s birth and an adoptive mother who died from an overdose not long after.
Hannah was born in Eritrea, spent a number of years of her childhood in Norway, and then most of her life in England. When her brother from Eritrea sends her a letter in London, she waits ten years to respond! But, when she does, she embarks on a journey with both geographical and personal ramifications that is impossible to put down.
She meets her birth father as well as many siblings, cousins, aunts, uncles, and family friends and her experiences getting to know her birth family are fascinating for cultural reasons, too. Pool is British, and is frequently overwhelmed by the emotional reaction of family members she has never met. But by the end of her trip, she is irretrivably changed and fundamentally connected to both her birth country, birth family, and her home and family in England.
My only reservation would be that Pool’s story is uniquely tragic — regarding the loss of both of her mothers — and many of her observations regarding the longings of those adopted were presented as universal. This seems highly unlikely given her horribly specific history, but I truly appreciate that she shared her story and hope to better understand my niece when she embarks on her own heroine’s journey.
Hey Kristen – I haven’t been participating in TSS for a while so yours is the first post I’ve visited today.
I signed up for the Memorable Memoir Challenge this year because I think that these are powerful books that need to be read. It’s interesting that you have a personal connection to this particular memoir via your niece – will you save the book for her to read when she’s older?
Clare
Sounds like a wonderful book.
Hi Clare! Thank you for stopping by! Honestly, I will need to wait and see what my niece’s journey is like as she gets older. She is so delightfully confident and undivided in her identity as a two-year-old, I can’t even imagine that she will struggle as Pool did… Pool’s tragic first years were so unusual, unfortunately. But I know her memoir will stay with me for years, so I will certainly pass it along if appropriate! Thank you!