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A review by kimiloughlin
Philomena (Movie Tie-In): A Mother, Her Son, and a Fifty-Year Search by Martin Sixsmith
3.0
The edition that I have of this book is very misleading. It was the movie tie in edition with Dame Judi Dench and Steve Coogan on the cover. Having seen the movie and been very intrigued by the horrendous history of Magdalene Laundries, I was excited to get this paperback half off at a bookstore. It took me a while to finally read but by the time I finally picked it up, I was so disappointed by how far off this book was from the movie, I almost had to stop. I persevered and definitely found some redeeming qualities but I wish I had gone into it with a different perspective.
Despite the new title (matching the movie of the same name, ,Philomena) and the majority of the blurb on the back of the book being about Philomena Lee, a young unwed mother who was forced to give birth in an Abbey and slave in a laundry until her sin was paid off, that particular bit of the story only lasts 84 pages, took a long break for 318 pages and then comes back for the final 18. The 318-page gap is about her estranged son she was forced to give up for adoption to an American family who came to Ireland seeking a daughter and left with a little girl and her best friend, young Anthony Lee.
Anthony Lee was rechristened Michael Hess by his adoptive family, a very loving mother, a not-so-loving father, and three brothers, one of which was a bully for most of Michael's childhood. I actually found Michael's story intriguing -- after a comfortable but not easy childhood where he continuously questioned his origins and lamented the circumstances of his birth/adoption, he went to college and came into his homosexuality. This being 1970s, he kept his sexual orientation under wraps. In his adulthood, he was a closeted gay man who worked as a lawyer for the Republic National Committee during the AIDs epidemic. If I had picked up a book that posited that as the content, I would have been interested in reading and learning about this man. He happily lived with his boyfriend and yet worked for a political party that hated people like him. He lived closeted while thousands of people died from AIDS and the Republican Party refused to use funds to find a cure. He ended up dying from the disease that his party ignored for so long, calling it the gay plague. I mean, this guy is fascinating! I'm glad I picked this book up while living in NYC in June 2019: World Pride! However, the fact that I was prepared for a "poignant true story of a mother and the son she had to give away" (literally the blurb from the cover) and discovered not even 100 pages in that this was ~not~ expected story of Philomena Lee, was disappointing and lead me to resent a lot of the book.
In this rare case, I would even argue the movie was better than the book. The producers took a tiny piece of this story and created a very good film that told an important story about the abuse of unwed mothers and their children in Ireland. Whoever made the decision to re-release this book with the title and visual from the movie and claim that this story, originally written in 2009, is the same as the 2013 movie was off their rocker. I'm sure it lowered the books ratings on every site just because readers and movie-watchers were disappointed by the disparity. Great, the movie is a good adaptation, re-release the book as the story that inspired it, DON'T try to trick people with a title change and Judi Dench on the cover!!!!!!!! Good marketing, bad morals.
Despite the new title (matching the movie of the same name, ,Philomena) and the majority of the blurb on the back of the book being about Philomena Lee, a young unwed mother who was forced to give birth in an Abbey and slave in a laundry until her sin was paid off, that particular bit of the story only lasts 84 pages, took a long break for 318 pages and then comes back for the final 18. The 318-page gap is about her estranged son she was forced to give up for adoption to an American family who came to Ireland seeking a daughter and left with a little girl and her best friend, young Anthony Lee.
Anthony Lee was rechristened Michael Hess by his adoptive family, a very loving mother, a not-so-loving father, and three brothers, one of which was a bully for most of Michael's childhood. I actually found Michael's story intriguing -- after a comfortable but not easy childhood where he continuously questioned his origins and lamented the circumstances of his birth/adoption, he went to college and came into his homosexuality. This being 1970s, he kept his sexual orientation under wraps. In his adulthood, he was a closeted gay man who worked as a lawyer for the Republic National Committee during the AIDs epidemic. If I had picked up a book that posited that as the content, I would have been interested in reading and learning about this man. He happily lived with his boyfriend and yet worked for a political party that hated people like him. He lived closeted while thousands of people died from AIDS and the Republican Party refused to use funds to find a cure. He ended up dying from the disease that his party ignored for so long, calling it the gay plague. I mean, this guy is fascinating! I'm glad I picked this book up while living in NYC in June 2019: World Pride! However, the fact that I was prepared for a "poignant true story of a mother and the son she had to give away" (literally the blurb from the cover) and discovered not even 100 pages in that this was ~not~ expected story of Philomena Lee, was disappointing and lead me to resent a lot of the book.
In this rare case, I would even argue the movie was better than the book. The producers took a tiny piece of this story and created a very good film that told an important story about the abuse of unwed mothers and their children in Ireland. Whoever made the decision to re-release this book with the title and visual from the movie and claim that this story, originally written in 2009, is the same as the 2013 movie was off their rocker. I'm sure it lowered the books ratings on every site just because readers and movie-watchers were disappointed by the disparity. Great, the movie is a good adaptation, re-release the book as the story that inspired it, DON'T try to trick people with a title change and Judi Dench on the cover!!!!!!!! Good marketing, bad morals.