Hole in My Heart: Love and Loss in the Fault Lines of Adoption

In the days before Roe v. Wade, an ambitious young journalist from the Midwest is abandoned by her Michigan beau. Instead of wallowing, she dusts herself off and lands a dream job on the city desk of a Rochester, New York newspaper. Burned once, she’s eager for love, but as the only Girl in the newsroom, she needs to find allies and make friends.

When a new leading man appears, she recognizes a kindred spirit. Soon, her bylined stories claim front-page space; however, when she becomes pregnant, she must switch her attention from deadlines to decisions.

With adoption on the horizon, she pushes her man to make a commitment. Sadly, he wants her, but not their daughter. Will Dusky ever find the little girl she longed to raise, and if she does, what will be the fallout from their years apart?

In Hole in My Heart, the author uses her skills as a journalist to report on the social history and long-term consequences of family separation. If you like true stories with strong women narrators, you’ll love Lorraine Dusky’s timely and heartrending memoir about motherhood, identity and love.

Written by a leader in the movement to reform adoption practices and the first to come out of a bygone era’s closet of shame. With footnotes, bibliography, and index.