You’ll Forget This Ever Happened: Secrets, Shame, and Adoption in the 1960s
£8.50
In You’ll Forget This Ever Happened, Laura Engel takes us back to the Deep South during the turbulent 1960s to explore the oppression of young women who have committed the socially unacceptable crime of becoming pregnant without a ring on their finger. After being forced to give up her newborn son for adoption, Engel lives inside a fortress of silent shame for fifty years—but when her secret son finds her and her safe world is cracked open, those walls crumble.
Are you still a mother even if you have not raised your child? Can the mother/child bond survive years of separation? How deep is the damage caused by buried family secrets and shame? Engel asks herself these and many other questions as she becomes acquainted with the son she never knew, and seeks the acceptance and forgiveness she has long denied herself. Full of both aching sadness and soaring joy, You’ll Forget This Ever Happened is a shocking exposé of a shameful part of our country’s recent past—and a poignant tale of a mother’s enduring love.
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Additional information
| Publisher | She Writes Press (10 May 2022) |
|---|---|
| Language | English |
| File size | 2064 KB |
| Text-to-Speech | Enabled |
| Screen Reader | Supported |
| Enhanced typesetting | Enabled |
| X-Ray | Enabled |
| Word Wise | Enabled |
| Sticky notes | On Kindle Scribe |
| Print length | 335 pages |
by Reader
What a beautifully-written, heart wrenching book this is. I read the whole book in one day, following the authors journey as a young unwed mum-to-be through to being a grandmother. It’s absolutely fascinating, and the tsunami of emotions that go alongside relinquishment is evident in each step of the journey. This is an important book in terms of adoption history, the stigma of being unmarried and pregnant is still touching people today who are the now adult adoptees, and the enduring loss for the birth parents. A thoroughly recommended read.