This is a look into the soul of an adoptee - what it feels like to wrestle with questions of family and identity. And the experience of having one's biological mother, the one who gave you up, make contact after 30 years. Homes has written a spell-binding, angry, and brave account of her discovery of who her biological parents really were. Unfortunately, they were not lost treasure returning to her. A bit like eavesdropping - you can't stop!

The acclaimed writer A. M. Homes was given up for adoption before she was born. Her biological mother was a twenty-two-year-old single woman who was having an affair with a much older married man with a family of his own. The Mistress’s Daughter is the ruthlessly honest account of what happened when, thirty years later, her birth parents came looking for her. Homes relates how they initially made contact and what happened afterwards, and digs through the family history of both sets of her parents in a twenty-first-century electronic search for self. Daring, heartbreaking, and startlingly funny, Homes’s memoir is a brave and profoundly moving consideration of identity and family.

“A compelling, devastating, and furiously good book written with an honesty few of us would risk.”
—Zadie Smith

“Fierce and eloquent.”
—The New York Times Book Review

“As startling and riveting as her fiction . . . a lacerating memoir in which the formerly powerless child triumphs with the help of a mighty pen.”
—San Francisco Chronicle

“Rich in humanity and humor . . . Homes combines an unfussy candor with a deliciously droll, quirky wit. . . . Her energy and urgency become infectious.”
—USA Today

“I fell in love with it from the first page and read compulsively to the end.”
—Amy Tan

“As a memoirist, A. M. Homes takes a characteristically fierce and fearless approach. And she has a whopper of a personal story to tell.”
—Chicago Tribune

A. M. Homes is the author of numerous novels and short-story collections. Her many awards include Guggenheim and NEA fellowships. She is a contributing editor at Vanity Fair and has written for The New Yorker, Harper’s, McSweeney’s, and The New York Times.

Imprint: Penguin (Non-Classics)
Distributor: Penguin Group USA, Inc
Publication Date: 03-25-2008
Pages: 256
Measurements: 7.78in X 5.12in X 0.48in X 0.38lb