A Strange Romance

In 1964 Michael Mewshaw's college girlfriend, Adrienne (not her real name), tells him that she's pregnant with another man's child. Adrienne professes to love Mr. Mewshaw, not the other man. Mr. Mewshaw accompanies Adrienne to California to have the child and give it up for adoption. (Several times in the course of the narrative the question is asked: What would you do in such circumstances?) Years later that child, Amy (not her real name), contacts Mr. Mewshaw, believing he's her father, and reasonably so because Mewshaw is the birth father's name on Amy's birth certificate. Actually Amy had hired a detective who first mistakenly pointed her to Mr. Mewshaw's sister as Amy's birth mother. Amy quickly realizes the detective's error, but she stubbornly holds to her belief that Mr. Mewshaw is her father.

Mr. Mewshaw chronicles his growing up and his own identity problems with a father and stepfather as well as his relationship with Adrienne. He was poor, she wasn't. In different ways they were both ambitious. Their relationship—east coast, west coast, and back again—did not end well. Mr. Mewshaw also discusses how many of us are adopted or know someone who is. He has a keen memory about the official aspects of the adoption process as he and Adrienne experienced them and how much has changed since then.

What gives the book its kick is the final section in which Mr. Mewshaw meets Adrienne again in London. Mr. Mewshaw wants her to speak with Amy. Adrienne is reluctant to do so, suspicious. She presents her version of events. The old differences and misunderstandings haven't gone away. If anything, they're magnified. Mr. Mewshaw also gets together with Dave, Amy's birth father, now an affable real-estate broker in Florida. His story contradicts crucial parts of Adrienne's story, especially how she came to be pregnant.

Ninety percent of birth parents happily reunite with their children, Mr. Mewshaw informs us. No reunions for Adrienne. She wonders if Mr. Mewshaw hasn't sought out Amy to embarrass her. Mr. Mewshaw has published ten novels, and adoption has sometimes been involved. Adrienne's husband suggests that Amy doesn't exist; she's a fictional character meant to bring harm to Adrienne's family. In the writer's fictional output, most of which Adrienne has read, she finds unflattering versions of herself. She accuses Mr. Mewshaw of getting even with her. She may have a point. Although Adrienne is not her real name, enough information is given about the public professional life of Amy's birth mother that even one so computer challenged as I am could go on-line and discover who Adrienne really is.

One reason Mr. Mewshaw's book found its way to me is my own adoption story, which I recounted in an essay a few years ago. I understand Adrienne's desire for privacy; but, having been in Amy's place, my heart is with her desire to know her birth mother.

The book ends with a dinner in Paris: Mr. Mewshaw, his wife, Amy, and Jason, her husband. Jason—an Hispanic-Apache raised on an Indian reservation—is a self-made millionaire. Improbable, maybe. Glorious, yes. What would you do if your girlfriend were pregnant by another man? You help her, most people answer. Not Jason, though. You move on, he says.