Gabrielle Glaser

The scandalous truth about postwar adoption in America, told through the bittersweet story of one teenager, the son she was forced to relinquish, and their twin searches to find each other In 1960s America, at the height of the Baby Boom, women were encouraged to stay home and raise large families, but sex and childbirth were taboo subjects. Premarital sex was common, but birth control was hard to get and abortion was illegal. In 1961, sixteen-year-old Margaret Erle fell in love and became pregnant. Her unsympathetic family sent her to a maternity home. In the hospital, she wasn't even allowed her to hold her own son. After she was finally badgered into signing away her parental rights, her son vanished into an adoption agency's hold. Claiming to be acting in the best interests of all, the adoption business was founded on secrecy and lies. American Baby lays out how a lucrative and exploitative industry removed children from their birth mothers and placed them with desperate families, fabricating stories about infants' origins and destinations, then closing the door firmly between the parties forever. They struck shady deals with doctors and researchers for pseudoscientific "assessments," and shamed millions of young women into surrendering their children. Gabrielle Glaser dramatically demonstrates the expectations and institutions that Margaret was up against. Though Margaret went on to marry and raise a large family with David's father, she never stopped longing for and worrying about her firstborn. She didn't know he spent the first years of his life living just a few blocks away from her, wondering often about where he came from and why he was given up. Their tale--one they share with millions of Americans--is one of loss, love, and the search for identity. Adoption's closed records are being legally challenged in states nationwide. Open adoption is the rule today, but the identities of many who were adopted or who surrendered a child in the decades this book covers are locked in sealed files. American Baby both illuminates a dark time in our history and shows a path to justice, honesty and reunion that can help heal the wounds inflicted by years of shame and secrecy.

A Mother, a Child, and the Shadow History of Adoption

American Baby

For readers of Quit Like a Woman, this “engaging account of women and drink, [cites] fascinating studies about modern stressors…and evidence that some problem drinkers can learn moderation….Bound to stir controversy” (People). In Her Best-Kept Secret, journalist Gabrielle Glaser uncovers a hidden-in-plain-sight drinking epidemic. Using “investigative rigor and thoughtful analysis” (The Boston Globe), Glaser is the first to document that American women are drinking more often than ever and in ever-larger quantities in this “substantial book, interested in hard facts and nuance rather than hand-wringing” (The New York Times Book Review). She shows that contrary to the impression offered on reality TV, young women alone aren’t driving these statistics—their moms and grandmothers are, too. But Glaser doesn’t wag a finger. Instead, in a funny and tender voice, Glaser looks at the roots of the problem, explores the strange history of women and alcohol in America, drills into the emerging and counterintuitive science about that relationship, and asks: Are women getting the help they need? Is it possible to return from beyond the sipping point and develop a healthy relationship with the bottle? Glaser reveals that, for many women, joining Alcoholics Anonymous is not the answer—it is part of the problem. She shows that as scientists and health professionals learn more about women’s particular reactions to alcohol, they are coming up with new and more effective approaches to excessive drinking. In that sense, Glaser offers modern solutions to a very modern problem.

Why Women Drink-And How They Can Regain Control

Her Best-Kept Secret

Charts the significance and impact of the human nose across different cultures throughout history, identifying its place in anthropology, art, health, sex, science, and other fields while considering its role in big business, from plastic surgery to allergies. Reprint.

A Profile of Sex, Beauty, and Survival

The Nose

Selected from scores of interviews across the country, eleven interfaith couples relate the many ways in which Jewish-and-Gentile couples have attempted to reconcile their customs and holidays, learned to understand their in-laws, and raised their children.

Portraits of Interfaith Marriage

Strangers to the Tribe

Looks at the cultural factors contributing to a rise in alcoholism among today's women and compares today's practices to those of earlier generations while noting the current ineffectiveness of AA and other mainstream treatments.

Gabrielle Glaser

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