num_pages: 288
description: Visit Betty Jean Lifton's website: www.bjlifton.com.A reissue of the classic 1975 memoir that Elie Wiesel called deeply stirring . . . important and enriching.In this significant and lasting account Betty Jean Lifton acclaimed author of several books on the psychology of the adopted tells her own story of growing up at a time when adoptees were still in the closet. Twice Born recounts her early struggle with the loneliness and isolation of not knowing her birth parents; her identification as a journalist in the Far East with the orphans left behind by American soldiers in Japan and Vietnam; and the guilt she experiences over what feels like a betrayal of her adopted parents as she sets off on a forbidden quest to find her roots.With the mounting suspense of a detective novel Twice Born explores the difficulty of searching for one's past when records are sealed and the complexity of reuniting with a birth mother from whom one has been separated by both time and social taboos. More than a vivid and poignant memoir Lifton has given us a story of mothering and mother-loss attachment and bonding secrets and lies and the human need for origins.
language: English
title: Twice Born
publisher: Other Press