The Mistress's Daughter a Memoir

“The Mistress’s Daughter” by A.M.Homes is a moving memoir in 238 pages, lyrical and poignant that I read in two nights. Look at that beautiful child on the cover and you know why this book caught my attention at B & N while I was checking over the non-fiction racks. I have never read anything by this author, but I would do so again; the cover of the book lists her other books and that she is a contributing writer for Vanity Fair. A.M. is 31 years old when her birth mother tries to contact her. Although she knew she had been adopted as an infant, there have been the never ending questions that roamed through her psyche throughout her life and now sitting in her parents living room and listening to them reveal the contact from the attorney who arranged her adoption. Her reactions and emotions range from wonder, anger, curiosity and through the entire spectrum. She learns that her mother was an unmarried young woman and that her biological father who had another family lived not far. All those years, so near and so far. This is a book for anyone to read who enjoys good writing and emotions in words. It’s a warning to anyone seeking out missing family members that life does not always end happily ever after and it is a book of encouragement for adoptees or those abandoned that you really are better off without the missing link. Yet it is a book for all of us who want to know more about who we are and how we got here.


The birth mother, Ellen, is not a likeable character but a very wanting needy person who would consume A.M. if allowed. The phone calls from Ellen become almost stalking. Her biological father, Norman, lives up to his “louse” image and does nothing to redeem himself. He promises to introduce A.M. to his family, to her half-siblings, but never does. He abandons her a second time in life. Reading her encounters with him gave me the impression that sex must have been the primary focus of his and Ellen’s relationship because he has the personality of a wart. Then again, it is a tale as old as the hills, Norman was the boss and Ellen, with obvious psychiatric short comings, worked for him. At one point in the dialogue A.M. addresses that their relationship had to be about sex only and she is the byproduct. All the discovery with the additional rejection and turmoil cause a despondency in A.M.

Meanwhile her parents torture themselves and her with “what ifs’ and A.M. develops a need to protect her mother from Ellen. A.M. allows herself to remember Ellen’s birthday each year but keeps her distance. When Ellen finally cajoles A.M. into meeting her for lunch, they are still worlds apart. A.M. thinks maybe an hour or two and Ellen visions a full day together. They meet at the Plaza Oyster Bar in New York at 4:00PM. A.M. arranges for a friend to come to retrieve her if she cannot escape Ellen gracefully. Ellen arrives wearing a rabbit coat and orders Harvey’s Bristol Cream to drink which leaves A.M. with more amazement that people really drink that. A.M. remarks that Ellen reminds her of Dusty Springfield.

Then there is Norman who is impressed with himself for some reason that is never made apparent. He lives consumed in a delusion of his own importance. He insists on a blood test to establish DNA at a shabby lab and does not even pay for it, nor will he later share the official results with A.M. He criticizes A.M. for not wearing jewelry of all things and says he would have taken her out for a nice lunch if she had worn something better. She comments that she is perfectly well dressed in linen pants and a blouse. Mr. Personality.

Some of the passages that make this a wonderful moving memoir:

pg. 10-11, “There is folklore, there are myths, there are facts, and there are questions that go unanswered. …………..How much was still being kept from me and how much had been forgotten or lost with the subtle erasure, the natural revision of time?”

pg. 38-39 “I am an amalgam. I will always be something glued together, something slightly broken. It is not something I might recover from but something I must accept, to live with—with compassion……………….It’s about fate, the life cycle of information.. “

pg. 68 “I used to believe that every question deserved an answer, I used to feel obligated to answer everything as fully and honestly as possible. I don’t anymore.”

pg. 91 “This is the world Norman lives in—faded but presumed aristocracy. The fact is, Norman is not upper class, and he is overextended.”

Pg. 93 “The fact is that whatever each of them is in this for has nothing to do with me. It is not about my need, my desire and for the moment I have had enough.”

My favorite quote is on page 69 “My birthday, the lighting rod, the axis around which I spin. I hold myself braced against it—an anti-celebration. “

The final chapter about her maternal (adoptive) grandmother, Jewel Rosenberg and her table, which A.M. acquires leads to her discussion of sitting at it with her own daughter. People who have lived otherwise normal lives within intact families should read this book to learn from someone who expresses how to become whole when parts are missing.