Jan Waldron's baby, Simone, was actually the fifth generation of women abandoned by their mothers. Determined to fight "an undertow of conditioned exiting, an affliction of easy farewells," Jan reunited with her daughter, now renamed Rebecca, when Rebecca was eleven. They spent the next thirteen years trying to get used to each other and figure out what kind of relatives they are. Giving Away Simone is Jan's account of their compelling, turbulent, maddeningly original relationship.

For Jan, the looming questions are: How does she end a legacy of leaving? What does she owe Rebecca, and what does Rebecca owe her? How does she look her own flesh and blood in the eye and answer the only question there ever is about the wrenching severance of adoption: Why? As Jan and Rebecca continue to negotiate their relationship through uneasy truces and outpourings of love, the answers will never come easy.

For birthmothers, there are no simple equations of loss and gain. Each adoption is its own unique universe of complexities and ambiguities. This beautifully rendered, unforgettable memoir gives essential shading to choices usually reduced to black and white and probes the emotional fallout on both sides of adoption. It also asks us to reconsider the heart of what kinship means and reexamine our relationships to the mothers before and after us.