Philomena

Spoiler Alert, if you plan to see the movie, wait until afterwards before reading this.  And I do recommend the movie.

A few months ago, I watched the movie Philomena, the story of Philomena Lee’s search for the son she gave up for adoption fifty years earlier.  Last night, I finished the book of the same name. The book is more a story of Michael Hess, the son, his life and his search for his mother.  I see that the book was originally published as The Lost Child of Philomena Lee, a better title, especially for the book.  The film is a touching story of how Philomena Lee and news reporter Martin Sixsmith search for him and finally make the connection that Michael Hess was her son Anthony Lee.  Unfortunately, mother and son do not find each other in Michael’s lifetime. -- In the book, they make the first connection to her son’s identity by discovering his tombstone

When I first started reading the book, I thought the writing seemed awkward, maybe because I am not used to reading biographies.  But it is an engaging story, and I glad I read it.  I wish I felt capable of writing an elegant review.  Instead, I have a list of things that stood out for me as I read.

It is disturbing how much Michael is pained by the knowledge that his mother gave him away.  It colored his life with feelings of doubt and self-hatred.  He fluctuates between trying to prove he is a good person and trying to prove he is bad and deserving of abandonment.

The treatment received by Michael, his mother, and thousands of other mothers and their out-of-wedlock babies is another Catholic Church scandal.  For years girls were forced to give up their babies and required to work off their “debt” in these Catholic institutions. Many of the girls were shamed for their immoral behavior.  It was a cover-up that went on for decades. I guess most countries have these stains from past and present.

Michael was three when he was separated from his mother.  I can see how that would be hard to overcome.  Yet it is a story that makes me worry for all the adopted children I know.

Author Sixsmith is recreating the life of a person he has never met by talking to people who did know him.  That is like quite a task, one he seems to have done well.

Not only does Michael have to deal with feeling abandoned, he has to deal with being a gay man in an era of societal scorn for homosexuality.   Much of his career consisted of working in the administrations of presidents Reagan and Bush as a closeted gay man.  There is a theme both for Michael and his colleagues of one set of beliefs and behaviors in private and another in public.  President Reagan and some other Republicans were tolerant and friendly to gay people in their private lives while ignoring them in public and doing nothing about the AIDs epidemic that caused so much fear and suffering at the time.

During his periods of depression, Michael engaged in wild, risky sexual behavior.  He caused his partner to suffer, and ultimately, he caught AIDs.  At times he seems the negative stereotype of a gay man.  Yet, he is supported by his friends and even his Republican colleagues. These descriptions of support, more than anything, show Michael as a talented and lovable man.

As I said earlier, I don’t read many biographies.  The movie could be described as a detective story, an attempt to find Philomena’s child against great obstacles.  The book is an account of Michael/Anthony’s life based on interviews of people who knew him.  I think I might not have found the book interesting without the movie and its sympathy for his mother.  But it is a good follow-up to the movie and together they provide a touching reminder of how inaction and blindness to wrong-doing cause needless pain.