cover image If You Could See Me Now: A Chronicle of Identity and Adoption

If You Could See Me Now: A Chronicle of Identity and Adoption

Michael Mewshaw, . . Unbridled, $23.95 (225pp) ISBN 978-1-932961-20-1

Mewshaw records the eerie, somewhat manipulative tale of being forced back into his personal experience of giving up a child for adoption. "Amy," an adopted woman seeking her biological parents, comes to Mewshaw, thinking that he is her father, after she received "nonidentifying information" from the Children's Home Society in L.A., which arranged for her adoption in 1964, after she was born to an unmarried mother. Concerned about health issues on the eve of her marriage, Amy seeks information on her personal history. Skirting her questions until he ascertains whether Amy is truthful, Mewshaw is plunged back into a time of emotional trial, when he followed his pregnant college girlfriend, the beautiful and politically ambitious Adrienne Daly, from his college in Maryland to L.A. to help arrange for her infant's adoption. As it happened, Mewshaw was not the father; he and Adrienne soon split up and they had no further contact for 30 years. Out of sympathy for Amy's plight, though, Mewshaw contacts Adrienne, now a top-level Republican official, and attempts to strong-arm her into answering Amy's queries; he also tracks down Amy's biological father and tries to weave the family threads together—and exonerate himself. Mewshaw, author of 10 novels and six nonfiction works, has fashioned an intimate saga. (Apr.)