American Bastard

by Jan Beatty

American Bastard is a lyrical inquiry into the experience of being a bastard in America. This memoir travels across literal continents—and continents of desire as Beatty finds her birthfather, a Canadian hockey player who’s won three Stanley Cups—and her birthmother, a working-class woman from Pittsburgh. This is not the whitewashed story, but the real story, where Beatty writes through complete loss of name and history, and a culture based on the currency of gratitude as expected payment from the adoptee. American Bastard sandblasts the exaltation of adoption in Western culture and the myth of the “chosen baby.” This journey into the relationship of place and body compels and unhinges, with the link between identity and blood history as its driving force. Beatty rescripts the order of the horizontal world of the birth table where babies are switched, the complex yard of the body where names and blood shift and revolt, and the actual story into the relationship of place and the insurrection of the body erased. Issues of class and struggle run throughout this book, this narrative river between blood and continents, between work and desire.

Genres: Memoir, Adoption, Poetry, Nonfiction

216 pages, Paperback

Published October 19, 2021

Reviews

[Michele · Rating 5 out of 5]

In this lyrical memoir told in fragments, Beatty upends the many myths surrounding adoption in the United States. Incisive, challenging, and aching with her longing to be part of something, American Bastard stands as a monument to the complexity of human identity. There are no rainbows or unicorns to distract from the cruel loss that underlies all adoptions, and no pre-set happy endings to interfere with readers' engagement with the twists and turns of one woman's search for the truth about herself and her family.

Many thanks to the publisher for providing an Advance Review Copy.

[Rebecca · Rating 5 out of 5]

Whew--this one stuck with me. I was so lucky to hear the author read from the memoir at Lit Youngstown's Fall Literary Festival, last fall. And her voice stuck with me for the entirety of the lyric memoir--punctuated by poetry. (Beatty is a poet first.) Beatty's story is challenging, maddening, exploring not just what it means to be a bastard in America but what it means to grow up at this time in working-class Pittsburgh. At the same time, the memoir reads like a page-turner investigative piece. Plus, there are photos for added interest. A powerful read I won't soon forget.

[AJ · Rating 4 out of 5]

This lyrical memoir is evocative and impactful. Though I've heard about some adoptees' experiences through anecdotes and media, Beatty's words were evocative. She made the gravity of her losses clear, as well as the human need to know where we come from to help us understand who we are and who we are not.

[Nancy Wade · Rating 3 out of 5]

I gave it three stars because it made me feel something. I can’t begin to understand what it would feel like to find out I was adopted, but I do have adopted people in my family, and they are very real - they are very much loved. I hope that they do not harbor the anger and resentment that this author has, towards women specifically. She railed against her birth mother but was apparently okay with the one night stand birth father that ended up denying he was the dad. She seemed to have affection for her adoptive dad, but nothing for the mother - she wasn’t mentioned much, so there could have been a good reason for this. It may help her to educate herself on the emotional toll that effects women who cannot conceive and who choose to adopt. She makes them out to be horrible people. Her rage over being adopted prevents her from having any compassion for those on the other side. This book amplifies the plight of women and unwanted pregnancies. Anti-abortionists think that adoption is the next best thing. This author’s view proves it’s not.

[Julene · Rating 5 out of 5]

American Bastard, by Jan Beatty, is a poetic memoir that is succinct, moving, and gets to the core: the heartbreak of adoption. Her life feeling different from her parents she finds her biological mother, and father, who the mother didn't want her to find. Born in 1952, a pregnancy out of wedlock was a shame, she was born in a home in Pittsburgh where her mother went to have the baby.

Crafted with a wide assortment of quotes, and some chapters more poems than prose, Beatty takes us on her emotional ride from her destruction of dolls, to the good relationship she had with her adopted father. Opening with her own quote,
"This story begins at an impasses,
since I am writing to you as someone who was
never born." —Patrice Staiger (her name at birth)

She uses quotes about water, psychology (Karen Horney), quotes from many poets (Muriel Rukeyser, D.A. Powell), writers (Zora Neale Hurston, Terry Tempest Williams) and songwriters (Joni Mitchell, Amy Winehouse) (to name a few). There are pictures of the nursery where she was born, Roselia Asylum and Maternity Hospital, of her birth mother, and her father who turned out to be an award winning hockey player. And of her adoption papers, that she did not see until her mother who adopted her died. By the end both her biological parents have died, she only saw her mother three times, and her father one time.

Writing it out like this does not convey the power of this book, I've been a fan of Jan Beatty's poetry and this book is stunning; in a hybrid form she has conveyed so much of her emotional experience. She does not let anyone escape into a fairy tale about adoption. In a blurb by Sapphire, "—with razorlike prose she backs you up against the wall of your naive assumptions." This is a must read book.

[J Earl · Rating 4 out of 5]

American Bastard by Jan Beatty is a hybrid memoir that, while being fully a memoir, uses more than straightforward prose to express that narrative.

One of the differences between a memoir and a biography, besides the obvious one of authorship, is one of relaying facts versus relaying feelings. Good books of both genres do some of both but a biographer is by definition a step removed when conveying the subject's feelings while a memoirist is the subject and can tap into the emotions far better. Do memoirs sometimes play a little loose with strict facts? Yes, in much the same way all of our memories do the same. But when reading a memoir how events are perceived is at least as important as any "facts." Since those emotions that were experienced are also facts.

I admit to being fairly ignorant about the details, both administratively and personally for those involved, surrounding adoption. A couple of my close friends from years ago were adopted and their experiences, at least that they shared with me, were almost polar opposites. Both had what would be considered loving adoptive parents but while one person seemed to be fine with how it worked out the other was far closer to how Beatty felt. So while I knew there was a spectrum of emotional response this book gave insight to a large portion of that spectrum.

Some readers may be put off by this not being a simple prose memoir, but if you read memoirs to better understand another human being's story from their perspective, and they feel that poetry helps them to express their ideas and thoughts, then the mix of style should be something you would welcome. If you just read memoirs to say you now "understand" someone, well, never mind.

Recommended for readers who want to learn what adoption is like for what is likely a large percentage. Like any group, there is a wide range of feeling but this speaks to a good part of it.

Reviewed from a copy made available by the publisher via Edelweiss.

[Jason Rosenstock · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really well-written and organized, lyrical prose/poetry, passionate and personal. I enjoyed the unfolding story of self-discovery, and her strong emotions around uncovering her birth family. I'll admit being put off a bit by her very strong anti-adoption beliefs, obviously colored by her terrible personal experiences with her adopted mother. She helped me appreciate that adoption by its very nature exacts a terrible toll on a person. At the same time, it seems like the alternative she's arguing for, that no one should ever adopt a child, would mean that kids would simply grow up in orphanages, which, for most, would be even worse. I'm sure she would say that she'd rather parents KEEP their kids (and perhaps that society/culture would support that more), but that's not likely to happen. So we're a bit stuck. Anyway, I enjoyed reading it, it made me think, and I was very sorry to finish--all marks of a good book.

[Bill O'driscoll · Rating 4 out of 5]

The poet offers a searing account of the emotional trauma she experienced as an adopted child, starting in the 1950s in Pittsburgh. Beatty writes that the reigning cultural narrative around adoption is built on a series of lies, including the "chosen child" myth (she views adoption as closer to human trafficking), and, historically, on the "closed adoption" model that made it almost impossible for children to track down their birth parents. She always felt membership in her adoptive family was contingent, and only began to heal after years of therapy and some detective work to track down her birth parents. "American Bastard" is a memoir (with poems), not a work of journalism or scholarship, so don't expect any policy proposals. But it is an unfiltered version of a point of view we too seldom hear.

[Carlos Allende · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this book. When I finished it, I started re-reading it again. I must say, though, that it's a very unusual book. Or at least it was for me. More than a memoir, it's like a long reflection, but it's also like a long poem or a series of short poems where you follow the narrator on her path to discover her birth parents and how discovering the truth makes her feel. It's a journey full of anger and disappointment but also hope, and while I didn't agree with all of the narrator's decisions (e.g., being more forgiving of her birth father than of her birth mother), I empathized with her at every step. Beatty made me feel and understand what she felt. The book leaves you with a lot of questions. It makes you want to contact the writer and invite her to have a cup of coffee: I want to know more. Very, very recommendable!

[Jane · Rating 3 out of 5]

Sadly, I was extremely disappointed with this book.

From reading the synopsis I thought it was going to be the narrative that everyone needs to read about the trauma of adoption. It was not.

As an adoptee from the same era as the author, I understood everything she was trying to say. But there were chapters clouded by unnecessary foul language, sexual content, and artsy writing that had no place in the history she was trying to outline. It added nothing to the narrative and was distracting. I skipped over quite a few passages.

I have yet to find the book, from the adoptee’s perspective, that correctly explains our trauma.

From a birth parent’s perspective I would recommend An American Baby by Gabrielle Glaser, and The Girls Who Went Away by Ann Fessler.

[Ron Mohring · Rating 5 out of 5]

Beatty's acute longing for clues to her birth parents really struck me. My own mother is, at present, still alive and able to tell stories about our family history--it's a gift I don't take lightly. For me, the book's structure worked well, and I took several weeks to read this slowly.

[J. Moyer · Rating 4 out of 5]

A lot of mixed feelings about this memoir. But that’s to be expected with a book like this. It opens with a cold hostile invective against mainstream thinking: if you think you understand adoptees, you don't and you can't. Not exactly welcoming to a potentially sympathetic reader. This book did help me understand my mother who was adopted and died too soon after years of destructive drinking and smoking, who rejected psychotherapy as bullshit and never found recovery. The author admits to a history of drug and alcohol abuse and finding therapy, triggering my own painful issues growing up with my enraged and complicated mother. We had taken her history as a adoptee for granted. The structure is spartan. As a neurodivergent reader, I appreciated the simpler poetic sections. Rarely did a paragraph roll on to a second page. It reads more like a mix of prose and poems. It is not traditional linear story telling. She’s clearly not going to accommodate to a reader’s desire for a linear happily-ever-after Hallmark story. She uses a lot of quotations referring to water, alluding to streams that are disconnected and oddly reconnected. Like water, she will not let the reader pin her down. I liked how she described her loving relationship with the man who raised her, how he seemed to have a better understanding of what she needed as a child than her adoptive mother who needed to erase the author’s past in order to build a mother-daughter relationship. The author rejects her because that was more about what the adoptive mother needed, not what the author as a child needed. The author does not get into the broader history of family trauma but does allude to it several times. Perhaps that is a sequel in the making.

[Bob Alberti · Rating 5 out of 5]

Bastard Nation

I'm a bastard like Beatty and reading her unbounded rage was very freeing. We're told how we are supposed to feel so often that even when we feel our rage it feels unsafe. Even now I can hear a voice tut-tutting in my head that I'm misbehaving simply by acknowledging my feelings. Beatty's book is very validating. More people should read this book because there are so MANY bastards in this nation.

[Jan · Rating 5 out of 5]

I've been following Beatty's poetry for years, and was delighted to find this memoir (how did I not know about this?!) I read it almost holding my breath, the prose expanding the shattering, overwhelming poetry into a broader examination of the myths around motherhood, adoption, the North American "obsession with niceness" and the demand of gratitude from the adoptee. Everyone should read this book, no matter your personal experience. I can't recommend it highly enough.

[Alex Kraemer · Rating 3 out of 5]

I've never read poetry, so some spots of it was hard to follow but I was able to lock in. The story behind this was so interesting and there were parts where I literally gasped. I want to read more of her stuff and maybe I can lock in and understand poetry a little better. But great writer and kept my interest the entire time. Great to read a book from a fellow Pittsburgher.

[Janilyn Kocher · Rating 3 out of 5]

The author seems to have much unresolved anger. It wasn’t my cup of tea. The prose was choppy and difficult to,follow. I found her personal story interesting, but her story about her dolls was quite disturbing. Thanks to Red Hen Press and Edelweiss for the advance copy.

[Lottie · Rating 4 out of 5]

This prose is brave, razor sharp and confrontational, I think it’s best read slowly or multiple times in order to really take in the range of living, wanting, grieving, and finding laid bare in American Bastard.

[Krista · Rating 3 out of 5]

VFOB author 2022.

[Pjo Riley · Rating 4 out of 5]

A poetic memoir if poetry was made of glass shards. I felt cut by it.

[BarbC]

Unique. Read it in one day.