As a journalist, Kate Adie has a knack for interviewing people, and getting them to open up, and it's knack that's displayed in Nobody's Child from the get-go.
Partially a memoir about Adie's own upbringing as an adopted child, partially a history of foundling children, adoption and fostering, and partially a collection of interviews, Nobody's Child is shot through with humanity.
Adie frames each chapter of Nobody's Child around a question, from the opening "what is your name?" to the closing "do you have a criminal record?". Some questions may seem like they're easy to answer, but Adie's purpose is to explore what these questions mean for people who don't have access to those pieces of information that we so readily attribute to being part of someone's identity.
I really liked the social history Adie dotted throughout Nobody's Child, looking at the different ways in which church, state and society at large, in a variety of countries, tried to deal with abandoned, unwanted and orphaned children, most of the time unsuccessfully or with a cruelty they did not seem to acknowledge.
In between this, and her own story, come the stories of various people Adie has interviewed, nearly all of them foundlings. And it's with these stories that the book becomes less like a book, and more like watching someone be interviewed. In most cases, Adie chooses to reproduce entire conversations with her interview subjects, which often are monologues. It's unconventional in a narrative book, and unlike anything of Adie's that I've read before, but it's powerful reading when it comes complete with rhetorical questions, awkward comments, half-told jokes and more.
Nobody's Child is a moving read, at once both the personal story of Adie and her interviewees, and also a damning account of the difficulties foundlings have faced, and still continue to face. It's a book to make you angry, but also one filled with hope.
How I got this book: Bought
First up in my challenge to read 12 non-fiction books in 2013 is Kate Adie's Into Danger.
Adie is a journalist I really admire, and I've previously read The Kindness of Strangers, which is her autobiography.
Into Danger is a little different, in that while it's about things she may have seen during her career, or people she met, it's not about her.
The book could be described as 17 non-fiction short stories, each focusing on a different "dangerous" career, from snake venom collector to armed robber to bodyguard to prostitute.
In some cases Adie provides a lot of narration, using her own experiences and research to help flesh out the careers she is talking about. These are the stronger chapters. Other times, Adie lets those she is interviewing just talk, and their words are printed for pages without any interruption. While compelling, I found these stories slightly less believeable, although, of course, they're all true.
There were a few chapters that really stood out for me. One of Adie's chosen dangerous careers is the diver, and for this chapter she interviewed two people, one of whom - Gie Couwenbergh - helped rescue people from the Herald of Free Enterprise when she capsized off the coast of Zeebrugge in 1987. The story of the Herald is one I know quite well (the first paper I worked for had a sister paper which covered every aspect of the tragedy, as many of those who died were from that area), but Adie's approach showed me a new angle. The chapter was well crafted, with details about the work of divers from the eyes of two people, an exploration of the mental toughness of someone who chooses a career spent underwater, and of course the telling of how a diver can help save lives.
Another story that really stood out for me was that of Brian McCargo, whose career as an Ulster Policeman started on Bloody Sunday. McCargo's story was compelling, but very matter of fact - yes, there were threats on his life and that of his family, but he also felt a sense of service towards the community, and that was why he stayed in policing.
In every interview, printed at the end of each chapter, Adie asked her subjects one last question about their career: "In the name of what?" The answers given for chosen careers vary, and encompass everything from adventure to duty to enjoyment. It's these answers that I find the most interesting parts of the book - after reading about the danger people put themselves in, intentionally and unintentionally, for their work, I was really curious to get to the why.
Adie herself has encountered danger in her career, but she brushes this off right at the beginning, assuring us that while journalists may encounter danger, they "don't necessarily have to face it, deal with it or rid the world of it".
"But who are the people who do?" Adie asks. Adie's mission with Into Danger to find those who do was successful.
As a journalist, Kate Adie has a knack for interviewing people, and getting them to open up, and it's knack that's displayed in Nobody's Child from the get-go.
