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A review by marryd
The Foundling: The True Story of a Kidnapping, a Family Secret, and My Search for the Real Me by Paul Joseph Fronczak, Alex Tresniowski
4.0
In 1964, in a Chicago USA maternity hospital, a nurse went through the ward checking babies faces. She didn't speak until she was finished then she went back, picked up baby Paul Joseph Fronczak, told his mother the paediatrician wanted to examine him, walked out of the ward and out of the hospital. Despite a huge manhunt, the 'nurse' was never seen again and baby was neither returned nor recovered.
Fourteen months later, halfway across the country, a toddler boy was abandoned on a well to do street outside a shop entrance. After some time it was announced that he was the missing baby Paul Fronczak. But Paul never felt 'at home' in his family although he knew his parents loved him. Nearly 50 years later, after the birth of his own child, Paul took a DNA test and began the search for his 'true' identity.
I listened to the Audible version which was 11 hours 24 min. It did drag in sections, especially in the early sections where Paul was recounting the history the lead up to his discoveries with little about his own reactions. But it is an amazing potboiler on it's own. It was absolutely worth holding on though because there were sections that literally made the hair on the back of my neck stand up. I struggled with the technology (I kept having skips) and the reader's voice at times, but it didn't stop me from being engrossed in the story.
If you've ever done your family tree, enjoyed Who Do You Think You Are, love detailed detective work, or just like biographies, this book is for you!! It asks What makes identity? What makes family? It has history, mystery and great detective work, success and failure, joy and pain, love and sorrow. You will make judgements, rethink them and make them again.
I'd never heard any of this story before and can understand how it changed hospital procedures such as leading to hand and footprints of newborns being required. I have spent decades working professionally with kids and adolescents who have PTSD and/or are in foster care, and their families, and so much of this story should be prescribed reading for professionals. Even though Paul was placed in a safe and loving home as a toddler and loved his parents and was loved by them, that did not stop him from being affected by what went before. And you can see the effect that it had on his whole life.
The one critique that I have is that there is a strong and unwarranted emphasis on genetic explanations for behaviour. At the time of writing this book Paul clearly has little understanding of the consequences of Attachment Disorder and PTSD and how these become generational issues. He wrote this book in great part to assist others who may be in the similar situations to his. To them I would say, Paul would have been greatly helped by therapy. Get help, as some of the difficulties Paul faced in this book could have been avoided with appropriate professional assistance. Do not try to do this journey alone.
Fourteen months later, halfway across the country, a toddler boy was abandoned on a well to do street outside a shop entrance. After some time it was announced that he was the missing baby Paul Fronczak. But Paul never felt 'at home' in his family although he knew his parents loved him. Nearly 50 years later, after the birth of his own child, Paul took a DNA test and began the search for his 'true' identity.
I listened to the Audible version which was 11 hours 24 min. It did drag in sections, especially in the early sections where Paul was recounting the history the lead up to his discoveries with little about his own reactions. But it is an amazing potboiler on it's own. It was absolutely worth holding on though because there were sections that literally made the hair on the back of my neck stand up. I struggled with the technology (I kept having skips) and the reader's voice at times, but it didn't stop me from being engrossed in the story.
If you've ever done your family tree, enjoyed Who Do You Think You Are, love detailed detective work, or just like biographies, this book is for you!! It asks What makes identity? What makes family? It has history, mystery and great detective work, success and failure, joy and pain, love and sorrow. You will make judgements, rethink them and make them again.
I'd never heard any of this story before and can understand how it changed hospital procedures such as leading to hand and footprints of newborns being required. I have spent decades working professionally with kids and adolescents who have PTSD and/or are in foster care, and their families, and so much of this story should be prescribed reading for professionals. Even though Paul was placed in a safe and loving home as a toddler and loved his parents and was loved by them, that did not stop him from being affected by what went before. And you can see the effect that it had on his whole life.
The one critique that I have is that there is a strong and unwarranted emphasis on genetic explanations for behaviour. At the time of writing this book Paul clearly has little understanding of the consequences of Attachment Disorder and PTSD and how these become generational issues. He wrote this book in great part to assist others who may be in the similar situations to his. To them I would say, Paul would have been greatly helped by therapy. Get help, as some of the difficulties Paul faced in this book could have been avoided with appropriate professional assistance. Do not try to do this journey alone.