11/09/2020
Attorney Cowan debuts with an impressive memoir about the unearthing of her deceased mother’s secret past and a generations-long cycle of family trauma. After her mother’s death, Cowan set out to discover what caused her emotional instability, cruelty, and “blind idolatry of status and wealth.” She learned that her mother’s mother left her at the hospital not long after birth, then reclaimed her at the age of 12. In between, Cowan’s mother lived at Foundling Hospital, a London orphanage where she was raised under the name “Dorothy Soames” in grim conditions, working long hours doing menial and often degrading tasks. “For two centuries,” Cowan writes, “thousands of children like Dorothy Soames were raised to mend socks and clean chamber pots, to work in factories or be sent to sea.” Cowan’s mother never discussed her upbringing, and Cowan writes of how learning the details of her time in the orphanage helped her reach a posthumous reconciliation never achieved during her mother’s life. This frank account of a real-life Dickensian dystopia captivates at every turn. (Jan.)
"The Secret Life of Dorothy Soames is the gripping true story of a daughter’s quest to find the truth about her mother’s origins—and, in the process, come to terms with her own life and choices. As she uncovers an increasingly dramatic tale of abuse, escape, and recovery, Justine Cowan must grapple with her complex feelings about this woman who, as she comes to learn, never had a real childhood of her own. A riveting, heartbreaking, and ultimately healing journey of discovery." — Christina Baker Kline, author of #1 New York Times bestseller Orphan Train
“‘I didn’t love my mother,’ Cowan declares. But this investigation into her mother’s life is equal parts memoir and love letter to the difficult, occasionally cruel woman who was not the person she claimed to be. Cowan has the doggedness of a public interest lawyer and a writer’s eye for detail.” — New York Times Book Review, Editor’s Choice
“This emotional and transatlantic journey is a page-turner about identity, the sacrifices mothers make for their children, how cruel society could be to unmarried mothers at the turn of the century in England, and the history of the Foundling Hospital.” — Amazon Book Review , Editor’s Pick
“Justine Cowan's extraordinary memoir The Secret Life of Dorothy Soames tells the story of her mother's harrowing childhood. Although telling a deeply personal story, she painstakingly gathers her material as if assembling testimony for a day in court. The result is this fascinating, moving book; part history of the Foundling Hospital and the development of child psychology, part Cowan’s own story, and part that of Dorothy Soames (the name Cowan’s mother was given at the hospital).” — Telegraph (UK)
“A brutal institution is at the centre of this affecting family mystery. . . . As a social history of the Foundling Hospital, this is a fascinating read.” — The Times (UK)
“Book groups will find as much to discuss here as they have with The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls, and Educated, by Tara Westover.” — Booklist
“Well-researched and highly personal, the book presents a fascinating narrative tapestry that both informs and moves. A candidly illuminating debut memoir.” — Kirkus Reviews
"This frank account of a real-life Dickensian dystopia captivates at every turn." — Publishers Weekly
"Part investigative journalism, part emotional excavation, this breathtaking and heartbreaking book tells the story of a daughter’s need to understand her difficult mother. An unexpected and original addition to the mother/daughter memoir oeuvre, The Secret Life of Dorothy Soames is both moving and artful, rewarding its readers page after page." — Adrienne Brodeur, bestselling author of Wild Game: My Mother, Her Secret and Me
"Page-turning and profoundly moving. Justine Cowan's meticulous research has uncovered a strand of British history and she brings it sharply and vividly to life through her personal quest." — Virginia Nicholson, author of Among the Bohemians
Book groups will find as much to discuss here as they have with The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls, and Educated, by Tara Westover.”
"The Secret Life of Dorothy Soames is the gripping true story of a daughter’s quest to find the truth about her mother’s origins—and, in the process, come to terms with her own life and choices. As she uncovers an increasingly dramatic tale of abuse, escape, and recovery, Justine Cowan must grapple with her complex feelings about this woman who, as she comes to learn, never had a real childhood of her own. A riveting, heartbreaking, and ultimately healing journey of discovery."
"Page-turning and profoundly moving. Justine Cowan's meticulous research has uncovered a strand of British history and she brings it sharply and vividly to life through her personal quest."
‘I didn’t love my mother,’ Cowan declares. But this investigation into her mother’s life is equal parts memoir and love letter to the difficult, occasionally cruel woman who was not the person she claimed to be. Cowan has the doggedness of a public interest lawyer and a writer’s eye for detail.”
New York Times Book Review
A brutal institution is at the centre of this affecting family mystery. . . . As a social history of the Foundling Hospital, this is a fascinating read.”
"Part investigative journalism, part emotional excavation, this breathtaking and heartbreaking book tells the story of a daughter’s need to understand her difficult mother. An unexpected and original addition to the mother/daughter memoir oeuvre, The Secret Life of Dorothy Soames is both moving and artful, rewarding its readers page after page."
Justine Cowan's extraordinary memoir The Secret Life of Dorothy Soames tells the story of her mother's harrowing childhood. Although telling a deeply personal story, she painstakingly gathers her material as if assembling testimony for a day in court. The result is this fascinating, moving book; part history of the Foundling Hospital and the development of child psychology, part Cowan’s own story, and part that of Dorothy Soames (the name Cowan’s mother was given at the hospital).”
Book groups will find as much to discuss here as they have with The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls, and Educated, by Tara Westover.”
"Cowan’s affecting memoir stands as a reminder of what was taken from the “foundlings” — they had mothers, for God’s sake! — and the gaping absence that was passed on, as a legacy, to their own children, including, eventually, to Justine Cowan."
12/01/2020
Cowan's mother possessed an elegant bearing, a mysterious past—and a volatile personality that left Cowan with psychological scars and eventually led her to cut off contact, including ignoring a handwritten manuscript her mother sent her years later. Only after her mother's death did she examine the document and learn the truth: far from being a secret aristocrat, Cowan's mother had been surrendered by an unmarried farm woman to London's Foundling Hospital, an institution established to raise "deserted" illegitimate children and prepare them for lives in service or industry. In this debut, the author tells of her experiences traveling to London to view her mother's records and explore family history. Given the name Dorothy Soames, her mother was raised in an environment of physical and emotional abuse where educational and practical needs were frequently neglected. Drawing on her mother's manuscript and her own personal research, Cowan unpicks the threads of the hospital's history and how decisions made by its founders and governors decades and centuries earlier irrevocably shaped her mother's life and her relationship with Cowan. VERDICT There are no easy resolutions in Cowan's story, but this title should appeal to readers interested in family histories and complex mother-daughter relationships.—Kathleen McCallister, William & Mary Libs., Williamsburg, VA
2020-10-27
Cowan’s English-born mother lived in "blind idolatry of wealth and status" and claimed to be descended from a line of Welsh nobles. But behind the facade and her hypercritical ways lurked a secret that the author began to uncover only after her mother's death from Alzheimer's. Haunted by their unrelentingly difficult relationship, Cowan began piecing together her story by investigating a carefully prepared memoir her mother had sent to "acknowledge her role" in their painfully adversarial relationship. The manuscript offered details of the years she had spent growing up at the Foundling Hospital, later renamed Coram after its 18th-century founder, Thomas Coram. The author’s mother—renamed Dorothy Soames—had suffered multiple traumas in her life as a foundling. From the foster mother who instilled a fear of Coram from an early age to the cruel nurses who routinely humiliated her and thought nothing of using physical violence as a disciplinary tool, Dorothy's caretakers showed her little love. Her later education prepared her only for "a life of service" and offered no latitude for "independent thought.” The only refuge in her otherwise dreary and isolated existence was friendship with a fellow foundling. After reading the memoir and visiting the hospital, Cowan realized the terrible impact of her mother's past, partially to blame for her raising her daughter according to a "warped, dystopian version of what she imagined a proper British upbringing to be.” The author’s historical analysis of the misogyny and classism that underlay the institution’s outwardly humanitarian mission makes this memoir especially compelling. Well-researched and highly personal, the book presents a fascinating narrative tapestry that both informs and moves.
A candidly illuminating debut memoir.
