The Secret Life of Dorothy Soames

Attorney Cowan debuts with an impressive memoir about the unearthing of her deceased mother’s secret past and a generations-long cycle of family trauma. After her mother’s death, Cowan set out to discover what caused her emotional instability, cruelty, and “blind idolatry of status and wealth.” She learned that her mother’s mother left her at the hospital not long after birth, then reclaimed her at the age of 12. In between, Cowan’s mother lived at Foundling Hospital, a London orphanage where she was raised under the name “Dorothy Soames” in grim conditions, working long hours doing menial and often degrading tasks. “For two centuries,” Cowan writes, “thousands of children like Dorothy Soames were raised to mend socks and clean chamber pots, to work in factories or be sent to sea.” Cowan’s mother never discussed her upbringing, and Cowan writes of how learning the details of her time in the orphanage helped her reach a posthumous reconciliation never achieved during her mother’s life. This frank account of a real-life Dickensian dystopia captivates at every turn. [em](Jan.) [/em]