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A review by lizzina
Philomena (Movie Tie-In): A Mother, Her Son, and a Fifty-Year Search by Martin Sixsmith
4.0
First of all, I am really disappointed to know that the title of the book has been changed after the movie has been released . The book is not about Philomenta, but actually about the son of Philomena, Antony Lee/Michael Hess.
It is a sad story, starting with Philomena sent to Roscrea Abbey, one of the "Magdalene laundries" which became sadly famous in the past years for treating the unmarried mothers into some sort of slavery and selling their babies, forcing the mothers to sign the papers, to US families who would pay a lot of money to take the kids.
Anthony is taken to the US by pure chance, together with Mary, a baby slightly younger than him, with whom he becomes close in the first years at the Convent.
Obviously no psychological support is given to the mothers or the kids who are suddenly put into strangers arms and taken away from their real mother. Anthony and Mary fly to the US with a perfect stranger who has barely come of age and start their new life into a family which already has three grown up children, just for some kind of whim of Marge, the step-mother, who wanted a baby girl but considered herself too old to have one.
Anthony and Mary get close one to each other, as the family never seemed to accept them (except Marge, who was anyway under the influence of Doc, her husband). Doc, the step-father, calls them "that babies of yours", the two eldest boys ignored them and the third one get jealous, especially of Anthony (now called Michael).
It's sad to see how Michael, always in search of approval from his father, grows up with a particular form of insecurity and, having the step parents always hidden the truth about the mothers in Roscrea, with the inner thought that his mother abandoned him because he was no good, so he wouldn't deserve good things.
This takes Michael spoiling his relationships,making him totally depressed at times and putting himself in dangerous and troublesome situations.
Struggling to know who he really is, he finds himself being homosexual in one of the cruelest and worst times of all for gay people, carrying on his career and becoming the key man in the Republican Party which stands against homosexual rights, he also witnesses with concern the discovery and spreading of terrible AIDS.
When Marge dies, Michael considers Mary his only link with the family, closes any contact with his father and brothers and goes on with his new beloved partner trying to live a normal life, never ceasing to try finding his own mother, while life has saved something else for him.
This book, the real life of Michael, made me sad. He could have been happy, but looks like he never was. i don't have any pity for the nuns that sold him together with many other children. They never regretted doing it, they only thought about saving their own reputation when hard times for the laundries eventually came. They where so misleading that lied until the end to Michael when he just wanted to know the truth. I guess they event thought they did something good for these children. While Michael probably wouldn't have been the Republican Party Chief Counsel, he could have had an easier existence.
It is a sad story, starting with Philomena sent to Roscrea Abbey, one of the "Magdalene laundries" which became sadly famous in the past years for treating the unmarried mothers into some sort of slavery and selling their babies, forcing the mothers to sign the papers, to US families who would pay a lot of money to take the kids.
Anthony is taken to the US by pure chance, together with Mary, a baby slightly younger than him, with whom he becomes close in the first years at the Convent.
Obviously no psychological support is given to the mothers or the kids who are suddenly put into strangers arms and taken away from their real mother. Anthony and Mary fly to the US with a perfect stranger who has barely come of age and start their new life into a family which already has three grown up children, just for some kind of whim of Marge, the step-mother, who wanted a baby girl but considered herself too old to have one.
Anthony and Mary get close one to each other, as the family never seemed to accept them (except Marge, who was anyway under the influence of Doc, her husband). Doc, the step-father, calls them "that babies of yours", the two eldest boys ignored them and the third one get jealous, especially of Anthony (now called Michael).
It's sad to see how Michael, always in search of approval from his father, grows up with a particular form of insecurity and, having the step parents always hidden the truth about the mothers in Roscrea, with the inner thought that his mother abandoned him because he was no good, so he wouldn't deserve good things.
This takes Michael spoiling his relationships,making him totally depressed at times and putting himself in dangerous and troublesome situations.
Struggling to know who he really is, he finds himself being homosexual in one of the cruelest and worst times of all for gay people, carrying on his career and becoming the key man in the Republican Party which stands against homosexual rights, he also witnesses with concern the discovery and spreading of terrible AIDS.
When Marge dies, Michael considers Mary his only link with the family, closes any contact with his father and brothers and goes on with his new beloved partner trying to live a normal life, never ceasing to try finding his own mother, while life has saved something else for him.
This book, the real life of Michael, made me sad. He could have been happy, but looks like he never was. i don't have any pity for the nuns that sold him together with many other children. They never regretted doing it, they only thought about saving their own reputation when hard times for the laundries eventually came. They where so misleading that lied until the end to Michael when he just wanted to know the truth. I guess they event thought they did something good for these children. While Michael probably wouldn't have been the Republican Party Chief Counsel, he could have had an easier existence.