Tree of Strangers (by Barbara Sumner)

• 2020 edition. 236 pages
• Publisher. Massey University Prtess
• Hardcover. D/j
• Condition. Near new

A compelling memoir of adoption, loss and discovery

‘I live at the end of a gravel road at the top of a valley consumed by bush. My husband is here, and my three girls. But the bush swallows them up like the road.’ I wrote those words at the kitchen table in 1983. A letter to the mother I’d never met. But how do you convey your life in a few sentences when almost every memory is missing?

Barbara Sumner grew up in a family filled with secrets and lies. At twenty-three she decided she had to find her mother. Remarkable, moving, beautifully written, Tree of Strangers is a gripping account of a search for identity in a country governed by adoption laws that deny the rights of the adopted person.

_{‘It packs a wallop’ — John Campbell, TVNZ}