Autofocus by Lauren Gibaldi

While I know that now it is more common for adopted children know that they are adopted than it used to be (I have a cousin who didn’t know he was adopted until he enlisted in the army–this was the mid 1940s, though). I don’t know, however, what percentage of them know anything about their birth parents, including their names or where they live. This is untrue for Maude, who in fact knows her birth mother’s name (Claire Fullman) and where she lived until she died in child birth (Tallahassee). Her adoptive parents have made no secret of this. And while they have reluctantly supported Maude’s efforts over the years of finding out about Claire, these efforts have failed to provide anything concrete for Maude, who has an idealized vision of her mother (her adoptive parent is her ‘mom’) and rather, the search has caused her a lot of stress and disappointment.

 

Maude’s photography teacher has assigned a term project: define your family through photos. So, visiting her best friend, Treena, at Florida State University in Tallahassee,  to both check out the school and investigate her birth mother, is a great excuse for a road trip. Armed with multiple parental warnings to stay away from college parties, drinking, and boys and with a map, plenty of water and snacks for the trip, Maude is on her way. Maybe she’ll better be able to define family after her trip, even though she knows finding any new information can be a long shot.

However, Maude is unprepared for what she does find: a friend she hardly knows any more and conflicting stories about Claire. She also finds it’s easy to forget those warnings her parents issued.

Autofocus by Lauren Gibaldi is really a two part story. The first part reveals how a high school senior, still living at home under the ‘old house rules’ can lose track of a friend who is trying to use the college experience to reinvent herself. The second is a story about finding out about your parents, both biological and adoptive, and realizing just what it takes to call someone a parent. Is it nature or is it nurture or is it a little of both that forms a person? Along the way, the idealized version of a mother that has been lodged in your brain may transform into a more realistic picture, but that’s OK.

I wasn’t sure I was going to enjoy Autofocus when I started reading it, but it quickly hooks you in. Anyone who is a parent understands a child’s need to ‘know who he/she is’. That process may be more complicated if a child is not genetically tied to his/her parents. All teenagers go through growing pains and Maude is no exception. Gibaldi does not sugar coat Claire or the process of finding out about her. It can be an all consuming task, fraught with frustration and disappointment. The fact that Maude has someone to go along with her, someone to share the experience with, makes it easier on her.