Longtime Lost

Those of us women who were blessed with good and loving mothers, who taught us by example how to be good and loving mothers in turn, can scarcely imagine a life without those bedrock blessings. In her searingly honest and powerfully written memoir, Long Time Lost, Pat Pollard opens our eyes—and our hearts—to another reality. Adopted as an infant by a couple in their late middle age, then losing her adored and adoring adoptive father to an early death when she was seven, Pat was left alone with an angry, resentful, and abusive adoptive mother. The heartbreak that follows in Pat’s heroic journey to find her true self is sure to deepen our understanding of and compassion for unloved and unwanted children.

—Bonnie Lee Black, author of Somewhere Child (Viking Press)