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78 reviews for:
The Foundling: The True Story of a Kidnapping, a Family Secret, and My Search for the Real Me
Paul Joseph Fronczak
3.61 AVERAGE
78 reviews for:
The Foundling: The True Story of a Kidnapping, a Family Secret, and My Search for the Real Me
Paul Joseph Fronczak
3.61 AVERAGE
emotional
hopeful
inspiring
reflective
sad
tense
medium-paced
There is a cost to learning the truth, and it can be very high.
Sometimes ignorance is bliss, I guess. When you start learning the mysteries of your family tree, you may not always like what you find.
I struggled to finish this one. The editor could have easily cut out half of this book. I lost count of how many times he followed a lead and was so sure he was going to find something, but then it turned out to be nothing. And every single instance was written about in great detail. I mean, come on! Paul Fronczak also came off as very unlikable to me. He pretended to be humble and reserved, but then he couldn't wait to spill his life story to anyone who would listen. He also wouldn't stop talking about the 4 women who were helping him search for his family pro bono while simultaneously ignoring their own families. It bothered me that he seemed proud that he was the reason they were so distracted from their home lives.
Sometimes ignorance is bliss, I guess. When you start learning the mysteries of your family tree, you may not always like what you find.
I struggled to finish this one. The editor could have easily cut out half of this book. I lost count of how many times he followed a lead and was so sure he was going to find something, but then it turned out to be nothing. And every single instance was written about in great detail. I mean, come on! Paul Fronczak also came off as very unlikable to me. He pretended to be humble and reserved, but then he couldn't wait to spill his life story to anyone who would listen. He also wouldn't stop talking about the 4 women who were helping him search for his family pro bono while simultaneously ignoring their own families. It bothered me that he seemed proud that he was the reason they were so distracted from their home lives.
I dislike rating memoirs this low because they tell the story of someone's life and who am I to judge them for the way they chose to tell it? That being said, this was kind of a mess. Paul Fronczak clearly is still too close to everything that happened and didn't have the time to process it. As a result, this memoir lacks self reflection and depth.
Paul Fronczak's story is mesmerising in its improbability: the people raising him had their son kidnapped from the hospital days after his birth and when a boy is found abandoned two years later it is assumed that he is the Fronczak boy. This book tells the story of Paul Fronczak's search for the truth and what happens when he finds it.
I really liked the idea of Paul's search for his identity but I did not appreciate the journey at all. His quest disrupts not only his own life and that of his wife and daughter, but that of his parents' and of uncountable strangers who happen to share his genetics. I found him to be difficult to relate to because of his apparent lack of empathy for the pain he causes.
But my main problem was his discussion of identity. Now, that is definitely a me thing and might not be a problem for other readers, but identity is a very important concept for me - in fact I am writing my PhD on identity construction. I seriously disliked the way the author boils down identity to genetics. This is so different to everything I believe in and I think it did a real disservice to the parents who raised Paul Fronczak.
__________
I received an arc of this book curtesy of NetGalley and Howard Books in exchange for an honest review. Thanks for that!
Paul Fronczak's story is mesmerising in its improbability: the people raising him had their son kidnapped from the hospital days after his birth and when a boy is found abandoned two years later it is assumed that he is the Fronczak boy. This book tells the story of Paul Fronczak's search for the truth and what happens when he finds it.
I really liked the idea of Paul's search for his identity but I did not appreciate the journey at all. His quest disrupts not only his own life and that of his wife and daughter, but that of his parents' and of uncountable strangers who happen to share his genetics. I found him to be difficult to relate to because of his apparent lack of empathy for the pain he causes.
But my main problem was his discussion of identity. Now, that is definitely a me thing and might not be a problem for other readers, but identity is a very important concept for me - in fact I am writing my PhD on identity construction. I seriously disliked the way the author boils down identity to genetics. This is so different to everything I believe in and I think it did a real disservice to the parents who raised Paul Fronczak.
__________
I received an arc of this book curtesy of NetGalley and Howard Books in exchange for an honest review. Thanks for that!
This is a touching account of a unique situation and story. I can't really say much else without giving away too many spoilers but this will likely be the best book I'll read this year.
Putting this book down was SO hard. I can't recommend this book enough, if you like true crime. Just be prepared, it's not a fictional story. Not everything gets wrapped up and answered. You will be left with questions that just can't be answered right now and may never be answered.
This ticked the boxes on so many levels for me as I love mysteries, memoirs, and genealogy. I found it tragic, and yet very engaging, to follow his path as he peels back the layers of who he is -- both biologically and emotionally. It also gives you a sense how different family members think and deal with the complex emotions and relationships that come from the adoption process. Especially in the adoptions of earlier years, which were enveloped in secrets and silence.
Caveat: There are a lot of names so it helped that I was reading it on Kindle and could easily double check who was who. Not sure if the book offers a genealogical chart to help.
Caveat: There are a lot of names so it helped that I was reading it on Kindle and could easily double check who was who. Not sure if the book offers a genealogical chart to help.
Listen, this story is crazy.
It's like overhearing someone tell you the craziest life story you ever heard and then telling you about how they pieced together so many crazy things and there's pretty much no science and a lot of salacious gossip-y lunacy.
But it's this guy's real true life.
And the world is different than you think.
It's like overhearing someone tell you the craziest life story you ever heard and then telling you about how they pieced together so many crazy things and there's pretty much no science and a lot of salacious gossip-y lunacy.
But it's this guy's real true life.
And the world is different than you think.
In 1964, when Paul Fronczak was 1 day old, he was kidnapped from the maternity ward of a hospital in Chicago. Fourteen months later a child was found abandoned in New Jersey. Very limited scientific tests were available at the time to determine paternity. All the FBI could say was that they could not rule out the possibility that the child found in New Jersey was Paul Fronczak. So they gave this child to the Fronczak family and considered both cases closed.
When he was 10 years old Paul found a box of newspaper clippings about his kidnapping case. He had never heard about it before. His parents refused to discuss it with him - ever. He grew up feeling like he didn't really fit into his family. He wasn't anything like them.
Then in his forties he decided it was time to investigate. He took a DNA test and convinced his parents to submit samples too. They later withdrew their consent but he sent their samples in anyway. This proved that he was not their biological child. Now he set out to answer two questions.
Who was he?
What happened to the real baby Paul Fronczak?
This book is a masterclass in the abilities and limitations of DNA analysis. It investigates the possibilities opened up by databases on the major genealogical websites to answer long standing family mysteries. (This happened in my husband's family.)
What was fascinating to me was the reactions of the people around Paul during his search. They did not want him to find out the answers to his questions. I don't understand that at all. His parents and brother cut all ties with him. If your child was kidnapped, wouldn't you want to know what happened to him? Wouldn't you want to know the truth about the child you raised? I don't see why it would make any difference in your relationship to each other.
His wife wanted him to stop searching. I understand that it was taking up a lot of his time but how could you expect someone not to want to follow the clues he was getting? Maybe I just hate an unsolved mystery so much that I wouldn't have been able to let it go. I can't understand people who are insisting that you walk away from it.
Reading about his birth family may be hard for some people. A family situation that ends with dumping a toddler outside a department store is not going to be healthy and functional. There is a lot of abuse described.
He met so many fascinating people along the way. There were volunteer researchers who worked on his case. He met distant relatives identified through DNA who dug into their own family histories to try to find a link to him. He met other abandoned children who hoped that they would turn out to be the missing Fronczak child.
The book is not able to give definitive answers to all the questions that it raises but he does have a pretty good idea of what happened in his life and the life of his parents' biological child at the end. I would recommend this book to anyone who loves genealogy and the science of genetic genealogy to see how it works in real life.This review was originally posted on Based On A True Story