Main description:

This is a heartbreaking, beautifully written memoir about tragic loss, a family mystery, a son's faith and his long quest to find his absent mother. Darling Baby Mine is the dramatic and moving story of John's search for his mother, who disappeared when he was just four years old following the disintegration of his parents' marriage. Growing up, it was as if she had never existed - he didn't even know her name. The only image he had of her was the vague memory of a woman smoking and laughing. Then, as an adult, he tried to track her down. After surmounting many obstacles, including his father's implacable silence and his own doubts and fears, John finally found her in a UK mental institution where she had been held for thirty-five years. He was then faced with trying to re-establish the deepest of human relationships: the bond between a mother and her child.