Susan Turbié's Blog

“Thank you, ma’am — thank you, sir. But I can’t leave my father, nor own anybody nearer than him. And I don’t want to be a lady — thank you all the same (…) I couldn’t give up the folks I’ve been used to.”

Eppie in Silas Marner by George Eliot.

Don’t get me wrong: of course there’s nothing wrong with wanting to trace and be reunited with one’s birth parents: on the contrary, it’s an entirely natural desire and the way that the law has evolved over the years to facilitate this process is an important milestone in the history of children’s rights. Adoptees who want or need to trace their parents should be given the necessary support, guidance and resources to do so.

That being said, some of us reserve the right not to want to, because we believe our parents are the people who raised us; we neither need nor want any others.

Here again, as I noted in a previous post here on the subject, there is a proliferation in fiction of depictions of adopted children who are driven by a need to reunite with their birth parents at all costs – forsaking their adoptive parents in the process.
One particularly egregious example was by the late great PD James: in her 1980 novel Innocent Blood, Philippa, the intelligent, attractive, but rather arrogant biological daughter of a couple of convicted child murderers and rapists – clearly based on the Moors Murders – is adopted by a wealthy, educated middle-class couple and as soon as she comes of age not only tracks down her birth mother, recently released from prison, but gives up a place at Cambridge to move in with her and provide a home for her. She more or less disowns her adoptive parents overnight, only returning to her former family home to steal the silver to help fund her cosy new domestic setup with her jailbird mother! More preposterous (and distasteful) still, it turns out that Philippa’s adoptive father only adopted her in the first place because she was a charming and intelligent child and he was besotted with her, eventually culminating in a (consensual) sexual encounter when Philippa comes of age, which both parties apparently see as an entirely natural progression in their relationship. None of this rang remotely true to me and left a very unpleasant taste in the mouth.
It was therefore particularly refreshing to read Joyce Carol Oates’s novella Cardiff, by the Sea: Four Novellas of Suspense, the heroine of which, Clare, is a thirty-something adoptee who had never shown any interest in tracing her birth parents (I won’t spoil it, but let’s just say, it’s just as well she didn’t):

“As a child, Clare had known children who’d been adopted. (…) One of her college roommates became (exasperatingly) obsessed with seeking out her biological mother. (Clare hadn’t encouraged her in the search and hadn’t sympathized when the mysterious birth mother turned out to be a disappointment.) Even to these girls, Clare had not declared herself. She’d never made any effort to explore the legal process of seeking out biological/birth parents.”

Once again, I do not claim to be a spokesperson for all adoptees: in fact, my views about tracing my birth parents probably put me firmly in the minority.
I’d like to end with another poignant, eloquent line from Oates’s story which sums up my own thoughts on the subject perfectly:

“When you are adopted, it is not in your best interest to ask questions why. To know that you are adopted is the answer to any question you might ask about your adoption.”

Without going down the well-beaten path of the nature vs nurture debate, suffice to say that not all adoptees feel like UFOs in their adoptive family.
Are my brother (also adopted) and I different? Sure! But no more than many biological siblings. I’m sure we’ve all known people in our circle of friends and acquaintances who are amazed at the chasm between them and their siblings in terms of personality, tastes, values, lifestyle choices, etc – despite being born of and raised by the same parents. Similarly, not all children are clones of their biological parents.
In any event, instead of comparing their children unfavourably with each other and pointing out their inadequacies, the smart parent – biological or adoptive – will do what ours did, i.e. acknowledge their children’s differences, embrace them and encourage them to play to their strengths

This week is National Adoption Week in the UK, an annual event designed to raise awareness about the adoption process.
As a writer and an adoptee, whose debut novel, Relative Error, describes a woman’s rocky and reluctant journey to trace her birth parents, this prompted me once again to think about perceptions of adoption and adoptees in society and culture. From Greek mythology to modern-day police procedural series, certain stereotypes of adopted children have long been perpetuated: I’d like to take this opportunity to dismantle some of them.
Before I begin, I should perhaps make a brief disclaimer: I do not presume to speak for all adoptees. I am well aware that there are as many different adoptee journeys and stories as there are childhood experiences – which is kind of my point in attempting to bust the myths and preconceived ideas about us.

Myth #1: All adoptees are damaged goods
You’re familiar with the trope: at best, we’re insecure, maladjusted and crippled by abandonment issues. At worst, we’re homicidal maniacs.
Growing up, I remember people occasionally looking at me with pity when they learned I was adopted. Years later, my own daughter was indignant and hurt on my behalf when a friend’s mother (I don’t broadcast being adopted, but I don’t hide it either, and this person was a close friend at the time so she knew), apparently said to my daughter, who was about seven at the time, something to the effect of: “Well, your mother’s bound to be emotionally scarred for life by her adoption.”
The deranged adoptee is of course a popular trope in fiction: a particularly histrionic early example is Sophocles' Oedipus Rex, in which the eponymous hero famously ends up unwittingly killing his father, marrying his mother – who hangs herself when she discovers the truth – and putting his own eyes out. Although, as melodramatic and far-fetched as Oedipus’s story is, hinging as it does on an outlandish coincidence – there have been (rare) tragic cases in real life of adoptees committing accidental incest with siblings they never knew they had.
There are many other fictional examples of the broken adoptee: as a pre-teen I was particularly outraged by an episode of the popular late 80s-90s detective series, Inspector Morse – the ironically entitled ‘Happy Families’ – in which an illegitimate child, the result of an extra-marital affair, is given up for adoption. This was apparently traumatic enough in itself, but when her adoptive parents end up divorcing, we are asked to believe that this additional tragedy pushes her over the edge: she becomes psychotic and ends up stabbing her birth mother to death during their one and only meeting! As an adoptee whose adoptive parents eventually divorced, I was baffled and exasperated by this.
Has being abandoned by my birth mother and subsequently adopted affected me? Absolutely: I’m as prone to existential musings about nature/nurture and identity as the next person. But actually, if anything, I would say it’s had a positive effect on me in terms of my emotional development and the relationships I’ve formed in my adult life: I grew up secure in the knowledge that I was chosen, wanted and loved by my parents, and when it came to getting married and starting a family of my own, I thought about my adoptive parents’ struggles to start a family, as well as the difficult choices circumstances had forced my birth mother to make, and realised how lucky I was: lucky not to have any difficulty conceiving, or not to be a single mum with an unwanted pregnancy. Lucky to have so many options: consequently, I didn’t take any of them for granted and realised that there was absolutely no excuse not to be the best possible mother I could.
Either way, my point is, being adopted doesn’t define me. It’s one of many experiences and circumstances – my relationship with my birth parents, other factors in my childhood – that make up who I am.

I discovered a few days ago that it was World Book Day on 23rd April.
This got me thinking about the many, many, many books that have moved, shocked – even saved me – over the years.
It’s very difficult to choose a few, but here are three books that had a profound, visceral impact on me and/or are evocative of a particular time in my life.
• Lewis Carroll, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland.
Immersing myself in Alice’s whimsical adventures got me through the first few tough, lonely nights at boarding school when I was eight.
• DM Thomas, The White Hotel.
I read this when I was in my last year at university in the mid-Nineties. I won’t spoil the plot, but the harrowing conclusion made me gasp out loud and sob.
• Benjamin Constant, Adolphe.
Also read when I was at university. A set book for my French course, it's the story of a purposeless young man who becomes entangled in a messy affair with an emotionally demanding older woman.
It resonated uncomfortably, uncannily with me: at the time I was also trying to extricate myself from a very stifling, draining relationship but, just like the eponymous hero, I was paralysed by a mixture of guilt, sense of duty and fatalism that prevented me from ending it.

What about you?
I invite you all to share similar lists of books that rocked your world.
Happy reading.

Genealogy, it seems, is all the rage. There are countless books, software programs and websites devoted to tracing your ancestors and creating family trees; TV shows such as “Who Do You Think You Are?” are hugely popular. In a matter of weeks and for a small fee, you can have your DNA analysed, put through a database and matched with family members.
Of course, genealogy itself isn’t a modern day invention or fad: digital technology has merely facilitated genealogical research. But the need to maintain a link with one’s forebears has always existed, everywhere: it’s one of the few things that all civilizations from all ages have in common. Ancestor worship is a fundamental part of religions across the globe and throughout the ages: in Taoism, Hinduism with the Sraddha ritual, the Day of the Dead in Mexico.
But why? What answers are we looking for, and is this really the place to find them? Does knowing who your biological parents, grand-parents, great-grand-parents, back four generations make you really whole, tell you who you really are? Isn’t it up to us to figure out who we are through our experiences, our relationships with others? Why do we think having a few cheek swabs can unlock the secret of our identity?
As someone who was adopted at birth and was never really interested in tracing my birth parents, I find these questions very interesting and they’re what inspired me to write Relative Error. The main character is a woman who was adopted at birth and for years was never interested in tracing her birth parents because she considered her adoptive parents were the only true family she had, the only parents that mattered, the only ones she needed.
But then when she herself eventually has a child of her own – a biological child – she starts thinking about what it means to carry a child; the importance of “flesh and blood,” a concept that previously meant nothing, finally resonates with her. She starts thinking about her birth mother and wondering what it was like for her to carry a child for nine months and then give her up, and these thoughts and feelings prompt her – finally – to trace her birth parents.
Without spoiling the plot, let’s just say it doesn’t go exactly as she planned. From Charles Dickens to Peaky Blinders, there are countless fictional accounts of positive, almost fairytale-like reunions between adopted children and their birth parents. But in real life, it doesn’t always work out that way – for adoptees or birth parents, for that matter – and I wanted to paint a less idealistic, and doubtless very common, portrait of an adoptee’s experience.
The Hammurabi Code, written circa 1754 BC, is the oldest known written legal text and includes articles about adoption, one of which stipulates:
“If a son of a paramour or a prostitute say to his adoptive father or mother: ‘You are not my father, or my mother,’ his tongue shall be cut off.”
This seems a tad extreme (those Babylonians weren’t known for their lenience and tolerance). But the heroine of Relative Error was, unconsciously, influenced by this idea: tracing her birth parents somehow seemed like a betrayal of her adoptive parents. This guilt – however misplaced – is one of the many complex and conflicting feelings experienced by adoptees in their journey.
Every adoptee’s experience is different, just as everyone’s experience as a parent and child is unique. Everyone has their own idea of what family is and, whatever it is, I hope the story of Relative Error will resonate with them.

A year or so ago, when I had finished writing my novel, Relative Error, and was thinking about how to promote it, I came up with the idea of starting a blog about the book and its characters. The idea was to breathe life into the characters, give them a life beyond the pages of the book by recreating the world they live in – their hometowns, their likes and dislikes, favourite books and food, etc. It’s sort of a fusion between a city guide and a food/lifestyle blog, but with an original twist in that it’s all seen from the point of view of the book’s characters.
It's specifically designed to be of equal interest both to those who have and haven’t read the novel: for those who haven’t read it, there are no plot spoilers and I try to tease and intrigue them enough to read it, whereas those who have read it can dig deeper into the characters and their world, find out what makes them tick. It recently went live: please check it out and let me know what you think! https://susanturbie.com/blog/.