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At the age of twelve, Lemn Sissay lost the only family he had ever known. He was handed back to his long-term foster parents who had cared for him since babyhood. The consequences were devastating. His memoir offers a forensic investigation into belonging, betrayal and catastrophic loss.
Lemn’s life began in a unit for unmarried mothers and babies. His mother had come to the UK from Ethiopia in order to study. Pregnant and alone in a foreign country, Lemn’s mother was not in a position to care for him, so, at two months old, he went into care. His mother was pressured to sign adoption papers and give her baby up. She refused to sign, hoping to have her son back when she could manage. She returned home but did try later on to reclaim her son. However, the British authorities made this impossible.
Lemn was renamed Norman and put up for long-term fostering, with the assurance to his new parents that they would be his ‘forever’ parents. ‘Norman’s’ foster parents were white Christians who were strict. He grew up to be a curious, charming, lively and intelligent child, who was eager to please. His foster parents went on to have three further birth children. The book hints at tensions and rivalries following the arrival of his brother. As Sissay approached puberty, his parents felt ‘the devil had got into him’. He began stealing biscuits and when confronted, denied his ‘crimes’. Ordinary misdemeanours and complicated unconscious communications were misunderstood and pathologised. Gradually, an atmosphere of suspicion and blame led to a spiral, in which Lemn was tested, judged and found by his foster parents, in the cruellest of reversals, to be guilty of ‘not loving them’.
What is extraordinary about this memoir is the form it takes. We are invited to read reports written by the social worker and other professionals. These were never meant to be seen outside the confines of a professional audience. Sissay is made the object of a disciplinary gaze and the reader becomes the vo