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Critics' Opinion:
Readers' Opinion:
First Published:
Apr 2002, 224 pages
Paperback:
Apr 2003, 224 pages
Part memoir, part mystery, Find Me is a compelling and utterly original tale that will break your heart as it heals it.
In Rosie's words, "The whole world changed with just one phone call...."
"I met Stacie for the first time in May. Her voice was meek and flat on the phone. She wasn't crying, but I heard it, the unmistakable sound of desperation. That was the first call, the single call that would change my life, and hers too, probably forever.
"I work with a nonprofit adoption agency in New Jersey. I fund their operation, provide outreach services, and they do the work. Finding families for kids who need them is beyond fulfilling, it is addictive. I like to help. I need to help. I help a lot, sometimes too much. "This is a true story about a girl named Stacie who called the adoption agency with a terrible problem. A lot of it won't make sense, at least logically. But sometimes sense runs deeper than logic. Nothing happens by chance. The events that follow, some dark and painful, changed me absolutely."-Rosie O'Donnell
FIND ME
Part memoir, part mystery, Find Me is a compelling and utterly original tale that will break your heart as it heals it. Told in Rosie's candid, moving voice, it is the story of a friendship between a troubled young woman and a celebrity obsessed with helping her. As this bizarre relationship unfolds—and unravels—so, too, does Rosie's history, forcing powerful acts of remembering and reckoning. This is a topsy-turvy tale of unforgettable characters, mistaken identities, and strange psychological illnesses that may or may not exist. Through it all, we come to know the author at levels that grow ever more surprising—and sometimes shocking—as Rosie reveals to us not only the way the past transforms the present, but how a single stranger thousands of miles away can spark irrational longings, profound obsession and, finally, the opportunity to put these forces to work in a healing way.
CHAPTER 1
"Come on, Bessie!" she'd say while tenderly tapping the dashboard of her rusty blue station wagon. "Come on, Bessie!" every time, without fail, urging the old car up a steep hill. I would lie in the way, way back, all alone, listening over the ever-present din of sibling arguments and wait for it. "Come on, Bessie," I'd mouth along with her. A secret ritual, a way to connect.
My dad sold Bessie sometime in the winter of 1973. I came home from school and the battered blue wagon was gone. I didn't expect an explanation, I didn't ask for one. I missed that car, full of memories, full of her. After she died, I would curl up in the way, way back, close my eyes, and search for the Mommy smell that still lingered inside. A scent that would carry me off to dreamland.
CHAPTER 2
I met Stacie for the first time in May. Her voice was meek and flat on the phone. She wasn't crying, but I heard it, the unmistakable sound of desperation. That was ...
Armistead Maupin, author of Tales of the City and The Night Listener
Find Me is a spellbinding read, as warmly intimate and confessional as an all-nighter with an old friend. O'Donnell leads us places you'd never expect, like that shadowy corner of the human heart where generosity and need are all but indistinguishable from each other.
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