STRANGER CARE: A Memoir of Loving What Isn’t Ours
親愛的，儘管我們毫無血緣關係
內容介紹
NEW YORK TIMES EDITORS’ CHOICE
「親愛的，希望你永遠都把這裡當做家。」一個新手媽媽寫給養女的一封信，道盡了領養過程中的不公平和血親之外不求回報的付出、愛與守護。
作者莎拉·森蒂利斯(Sarah Sentilles)和丈夫艾瑞克決定不生孩子時，他們同時也決定透過「領養」來擁有孩子。儘管他們很清楚，領養孩子終究只是在幫助孩子與自己的親生父母團聚。但是莎拉還是打開家門，讓社工們前來作家庭評估、查核他們的領養的動機和能力。經過無數個月的期盼與失望交錯，進度起起伏伏，不間斷地與領養手續磨合，體認到領養流程裡的複雜及不公平，最後終於等到一通電話，一名出生三天大的女嬰，叫做Coco(可可)，極需一個安置的家庭。最後可可來到了莎拉和艾瑞克的懷裡。
「妳永遠不是『我們的』孩子，但我們永遠屬於彼此。」這是莎拉對可可寫的一封信，以及給無數個和可可一樣身世孩子的一封信，從這段歷程作者以無懼的真誠告白一個領養母親的心路歷程，深刻探索母親這個角色的意義與心得。可可的故事提醒人的存在其實十分依賴家庭，而家庭也能以各種不一樣的形式存在著。
本書不僅是養母的回憶錄，也述說一個親密關係帶來療癒力量的故事：我們如何互相照顧和保護？我們如何確保在這個星球上能生活更加美好？如果我們和動植物、宇宙、其他人類都親密無間，我們能如何好好地生活？
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作者介紹
畢業於哈佛及耶魯大學神學院，著有四本書籍，包含《與上帝分手》(暫譯)(Breaking Up with God)、《她自己的教會》(暫譯) (A Church of Her Own)、《美國教我的一堂課》(暫譯) (Taught by America)。目前住在愛達荷州的伍德河谷。
書評
“In prose so gripping it reads like a thriller, Sentilles describes the choices that led to the moment when she and her husband are on the phone with a social worker, saying yes to fostering a three-day-old girl. . . What makes this book so powerful is that by experiencing motherhood through the lens of fostering, Sentilles is able to look at the wrenching and worn-out topics of parenting in a new way.”—San Francisco Chronicle
“A heartbreaking memoir that, if you let it, will change the way you understand love and loyalty and family and caretaking and belonging.”—Chicago Tribune
“An astonishing account of motherhood experienced through the complex lens of foster parenting.”—Shelf Awareness
“Beautiful, harrowing, and profound . . . With sensitivity and insight, Sarah Sentilles takes readers with her on her tender and wrenching path to motherhood while grappling with the complexities, contradictions, and injustices of a system meant to protect the most vulnerable. I love this book so much it hurts.”—Cheryl Strayed, author of Wild
“This is a memoir for anyone who has ever loved a child—or a whale or a bird or a tree, or indeed any part of this hard, beautiful world we all share, which is to say everyone. It is a memoir for everyone.”—Laurie Frankel, author of This Is How It Always Is
“Stranger Care is an illuminating and heart-wrenching look at the foster care system in America, which includes half a million children and disproportionately impacts parents and kids of color. It is a transformative revelation.”—Piper Kerman, author of Orange Is the New Black
“Stranger Care is a book about loving a child without boundaries, without bloodlines, without limits. This is the only book about parenting that I would recommend to anyone, because it strikes at the essential, complicated, and heartbreaking core of what parents do every moment of every day: love, love, love, love. No matter what.”—Emily Rapp Black, author of The Still Point of the Turning World
“Stranger Care is a gripping and beautiful memoir. Sarah Sentilles shares a personal story that is also a story about how we live in America today—and why we must find new ways to love and care for one another.”—Ben Rhodes, author of The World As It Is
“Stranger Care is a work of radical moral philosophy as much as a memoir of one family’s journey through the foster care system. Their story has changed me—it broke my heart wide open in the best possible way—and I don’t think I’ll ever be same.”—Lacy M. Johnson, author of The Reckonings
“Sentilles uses the sheer power of her writing to lift their story above the failures of flawed adults and to remind us of the human heart’s limitless capacity for hope.”—BookPage (starred review)
“Essential reading for those hoping to be foster parents.”—Library Journal (starred review)
“Memoir lovers and book groups will be enthralled.”—Booklist (starred review)