Letter to Louise: A Loving Memoir to the Daughter I Gave Up for Adoption More Than Twenty-Five Years Ago

Award-winning British actress Collins, of Upstairs, Downstairs TV fame, reveals that in 1964, at age 23, she bore a child and then gave her up for adoption. This diary-like story of her 1940s and '50s coming-of-age alternates with her descriptions of her acting days in the 1960s and the birth of Louise, fathered by an actor. The breezy narrative is rich in sketches of Collins's family and theater colleagues, along with tales of other pregnant young women who, like Collins, were in a convent being cared for by nuns in the weeks before and after delivery. Most affecting is Collins's account of her decision to give up the baby to a couple she judged better able to raise her. She did not see Louise again until the young woman sought her out 22 years later, and they ``with unbelievable ease, slipped back into each other's lives.'' (Nov.)