num_pages: 304
description: "McKinley writes beautifully in this debut memoir, never resorting to sentimentality or easy emotions within this tangled web of emotional and family secrets." -- Publishers Weekly Catherine McKinley was one of only a few thousand African American and bi-racial children adopted by white couples in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Raised in a small, white New England town, she grew up with a persistent longing. After a five-year search marked by disappointment, she finds her birth mother and a half-sister named Sarah, the name originally given to her. When she locates her birth father and several of his eleven other children, she is then confronted with a revelation that threatens to destabilize all she has uncovered. In telling of her struggles, McKinley challenges us to rethink our own preconceptions about race, loyalty, and love.
language: English
title: The Book of Sarahs: A Family in Parts
titlecomplete: The Book of Sarahs: A Family in Parts
genres: Memoir, Adoption, Race, Nonfiction, Family
ratings_count: 103
publisher: Counterpoint