Overview

"The dramatic story of one woman's determined surprising search for her birth parents and commitment to creating her own family Janine Veto's ""Unknown Bodies: Mothers Daughters and Adoption"" is a brutally and beautifully honest story that begins on a Villa Park, Illinois, playground when her playmate calls her ""bastard."" Until then she thought being adopted was happily special. Her life had been privileged, secure and typically 1950s American: Dad, mom, brother, church on Sunday, lakeside summers in northern Wisconsin. Suddenly Veto felt she was ""misplaced."" The need to find her so-called ""real parents"" grew. It was a need that would take decades as well as drive, cunning, a little thievery and a lot of spunk. It also was a need fueled by alcohol, sex and disillusion. Set in the arts and philanthropy worlds of Chicago and New York as well as Iowa farm country, a Denver sports bars and a Midwestern university town, it is memoir of a Boomer in search of her identity in the rapidly changing landscape of what it means to be adopted in America. Ultimately, the message of ""Unknown Bodies"" is love; the unconditional love of Veto's adoptive parents, accepting and forgiving love for her broken ""real parents"", and the bonding love between Veto and her own adopted daughter."

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9781735608426

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Reviews

Even as an adopted child, Janine Veto knew there were big pieces missing from her jigsaw life. In setting out to find her birth mother, she inadvertently stumbled on a lost tribe. She is fierce in pursuit, undaunted in courage, and absolute in love. In this gripping memoir, she delivers a meditation on what it means to claim your place in the human family, and what it costs to be made whole. - Jean Feraca, author of I Hear Voices: A Memoir of Love, Death, and the Radio jeanferaca@wordpress.com. Whether intended or not, Janine Veto's compelling memoir is a vivid study of the nature/nurture argument, demonstrating the impact of both. Despite her middle-class upbringing, Veto drifts into behaviors that are clearly mirrored in the natural mother and father she finds. As an added fill-up, her multi-layered story is also that of an adoptee who, as a gay single woman, adopts a girl from China. - Lorraine Dusky, author of hole in my heart Janine Veto writes about adoption from the inside out. Herself an adoptee, she is also the mother of an adopted Chinese daughter. Born of a single woman in a time when pregnant single women had to hide, Veto recounts her struggles to find her birth mother and thus reclaim a lost shard of her identity. A memoir that is at once moving, compelling, and a page-turner. - Emily Prager, author of Wuhu Diaries

Even as an adopted child, Janine Veto knew there were big pieces missing from her jigsaw life. In setting out to find her birth mother, she inadvertently stumbled on a lost tribe. She is fierce in pursuit, undaunted in courage, and absolute in love. In this gripping memoir, she delivers a meditation on what it means to claim your place in the human family, and what it costs to be made whole. - Jean Feraca, author of I Hear Voices: A Memoir of Love, Death, and the Radio jeanferaca@wordpress.com. Whether intended or not, Janine Veto's compelling memoir is a vivid study of the nature/nurture argument, demonstrating the impact of both. Despite her middle-class upbringing, Veto drifts into behaviors that are clearly mirrored in the natural mother and father she finds. As an added fill-up, her multi-layered story is also that of an adoptee who, as a gay single woman, adopts a girl from China. - Lorraine Dusky, author of hole in my heart Janine Veto writes about adoption from the inside out. Herself an adoptee, she is also the mother of an adopted Chinese daughter. Born of a single woman in a time when pregnant single women had to hide, Veto recounts her struggles to find her birth mother and thus reclaim a lost shard of her identity. A memoir that is at once moving, compelling, and a page-turner. - Emily Prager, author of Wuhu Diaries

Author Information

Janine Veto has worked as an arts administrator and development director in Chicago, New York and Madison, Wisconsin. Her Chicago career encompassed public television and the Chicago Council on Fine Arts where she created their first literature program. During 25 years in New York she served as Development Director Poets & Writers, Inc., Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater and the Joffrey Ballet and as consultant to Lincoln Center Inc., the School of American Ballet, National Public Radio an many others. Her novel Iris was published by Alyson Publications.

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