'A shark in the garden': Adoptee memoir as testimonial literature – a creative and exegetical reflection

I was told by my father in December 1988 that I was adopted. I was twenty-three years old, near the end of a medical degree, and had just announced to my parents that I thought it best I leave home because of the intense conflict between my father and myself. This ‘revelation’ of my adoptive status was a life-changing event that I have struggled with since that day, but which also explained many things about our family. It is in response to this revelation that I endeavoured to write a memoir that would explain our family dynamic, to both myself and others, and provide what might be a useful resource for adopted and non-adopted people generally, especially late discovery adoptees (LDAs). The resulting memoir, ‘A shark in the garden’, forms part of this thesis; its companion is an exegesis on adoptee memoir as testimony literature. The primary research question that has driven my research is: How can I write, as a late discovery adoptee, a memoir that reflects that particular experience and addresses the concerns and interests of the late discovery adoptee reader, as well as the memoir reader more generally? The secondary question or sub-question that is needed in order to fully address it is: Where do adoptee life narratives, both late discovery and non-secretive, fit in to the general category of autobiography or memoir, and do they have any special features I need to consider in writing my memoir? I argue that adoptee memoir, particularly LDA memoir, has a testimonial function arising from its depiction of experiences especial to adoptees, and that, as a result of this, it has a distinct place in the taxonomy of life writing rather than being included within other genres (such as filiation narratives). The memoir is focused on my life with my adoptive parents, structured around that ‘pivot point’ of the revelation, where everything changed. My father had been a Royal Air Force navigator in World War Two and suffered the effects of trauma from this experience, which affected both of my parents and our family life. Issues of mental illness for both my father and myself, suicidality, infertility, and family conflict arise, as well as my confusion around identity and the search for my birth mother and reunion with her. The secrecy around my adoption was compounded by other secrets also not revealed until after the death of my parents. This is a practice-led/research-enabled project with input from autoethnography. The exegetical component gives a brief overview of the history of adoption, the psychological aspects of adoption, and issues around late discovery generally, before I then examine adoptee memoir with a view to constructing a taxonomy of adoptee/LDA life writing, and to situate it within the larger category of autobiography, using Smith and Watson’s (2010) sixty genres of autobiography, Gage’s Internet database, the Reader’s guide to adoption-related literature, and my wider research. I follow this with a discussion of trauma and testimony as they apply to adoptees. I use the case of adoptee Binjamin Wilkomirski’s false Holocaust memoir, Fragments: memories of a childhood, 1939–1948 (1997), to explore aspects of the effects of trauma upon the adoptee and how it may have affected his writing of the memoir, and discuss the possible implications of the traumatic ‘wound’, the potential of testimony and constructing counterstories. These discussions are particularly centred around late discovery adoptees, who must deal with the impact of origin secrecy upon themselves and their relationship with their families. My arguments and their significance and the contribution to knowledge of the thesis are brought together in the conclusion, namely that adoptee memoir has a testimonial function and a place within the taxonomy of life writing because adoptees, and late discovery adoptees in particular, experience the effects of deliberate family formation policies, both of the past and the present. Late discovery adoptees have the added experience of secrecy about their origins. Their memoirs often reflect the effects of separation and secrecy, and search and reunion.