Bastards

A Memoir

By: Mary King

Narrated by: Christina Delaine

Living in Oklahoma with her maternal grandfather, Mary gets a new name and a new life. But she's haunted by the past: by the baby girls she's sure will come looking for her someday, by the mother she left behind, by the father who left her. Mary is a college student when her sisters start to get back in touch. With each subsequent reunion, her family becomes closer to whole again.

Moving, haunting, and at times wickedly funny, Bastards is about finding one's family and oneself.

©2015 Original Material by Mary Anna King, recorded by arrangement with W.W. Norton & Company, Inc. (P)2015 HighBridge, a division of Recorded Books

Critic reviews

"Is it OK to repeatedly burst out laughing in the middle of a crowded coffeehouse before explaining to fellow customers, 'It's this hilarious new book about a crazy family that gave away their children the way other families send out Christmas cards'? If not, I apologize for all the interrupted coffee breaks and lift my cup to Mary King and her glorious Bastards, a rib-tickling yet deeply moving debut memoir. Only a writer with King's keen eye, expert storytelling skills, and from-the-heart honesty can turn a childhood this deficient into a book so rich." (Franz Wisner, author of Honeymoon with My Brother)
"With Bastards Mary Anna King has crafted a wise and indispensable meditation on the true nature of family, the dislocations of adoption, and all the vital species of love. She brings light to them all." (Steve Almond, author of Against Football: One Man's Reluctant Manifesto and Bad Poetry)
"An impressive debut.... [Mary Anna King's] prose moves with lyrical wit and cultural texture as she persists with all of her protean self to figure out the nature of family and the deepest human connections amid trauma and confusion." (Peter Balakian, author of Black Dog of Fate)

Children’s perspective from a dysfunctional family

This book gives an inside view of instability and the role of its importance to development and the effects it plays on sibling. I found it overall a sad and heartfelt biography. I do recommend this to anyone who likes a backstory of disfunctional family dynamics. I would listen to their next phase of life to see their outcome.
It did take me a while to not be bothered by the narrator and her swallowing even though it was twice. Then I could concentrate on the story.

A beautiful tragic story

I would listen all over again. Thank you to the author for sharing her journey through life

Brilliantly written!

This book reads like a song. It’s beautifully written with just the right amount of lightness to keep from sounding depressing as the subject matter would normally evoke. The narrator really brought the story to life as well.

Amazing story

Every word and every sentence was placed in the right order. It made you feel what Mary was going through and what her life was like. It also made to look at your own self and your relationship with others. Thank you Mary! Good job and a good life.🥇

survivor

absolutely loved it. currently adopting now. but having it open so she can know her heritage and birth parents. also loved the mention of Jehovahs Witnesses from the book although small since I'm one it's always neat to be mentioned.

No sugarcoating, no bitterness, just brilliance

My habit is to listen to books while driving, and I was always glad to be back in my car because this memoir was so beautifully written and so riveting. . Toward the end of the memoir, though, I had to listen in the house and while walking since my need to know how things turned out for Mary and her sisters was so strong. I felt as if I were right with her in her longing to meet the sisters who'd been adopted by strangers.

Early parts of the memoir describing her childhood in New Jersey are some of the best writing I've read from a child's-eye point of view. You can't help loving the little girl who loves her brother and all her missing sisters, and you can't help loving the young woman who tries to make sense of a very chaotic situation.

It's not easy to write a book with so many characters in it and to make all of the characters memorable, but Mary Anna King succeeds at this, even though the relationships between characters are complex. As an adoptee, I appreciated her honesty and her insights about what makes a family feel like family - - she doesn't sugarcoat, but there's no bitterness here, either. A major accomplishment by a young and gifted writer.

Heartbreaking and Heartwarming

How can a book both break your heart and warm it? When it is a true story and shows the reader a piece of real life that they may not have experience with combined with the real life characters that many of us have crossed paths with. A deeper look inside what makes us and what breaks us, the strength that comes from adversity and the power of an open heart and mind. If you are an adoptee you may find this story especially resonates with your experience or even your imagined existence.