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A Long Way from Home

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A Long Way from Home

By: Cathy Glass
Narrated by: Denica Fairman
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About this listen

The true story of 2 year-old Anna, abandoned by her natural parents, left alone in a neglected orphanage.

Elaine and Ian had travelled half way round the world to adopt little Anna. She couldn’t have been more wanted, loved and cherished. So why was she now in foster care and living with me? It didn’t make sense.

Until I learned what had happened...

Dressed only in nappies and ragged T-shirts the children were incarcerated in their cots. Their large eyes stared out blankly from emaciated faces. Some were obviously disabled, others not, but all were badly undernourished. Flies circled around the broken ceiling fans and buzzed against the grids covering the windows. The only toys were a few balls and a handful of building bricks, but no child played with them. The silence was deafening and unnatural. Not one of the thirty or so infants cried, let alone spoke.

©2018 Cathy Glass (P)2018 HarperCollins Publishers Parenting & Families Relationships
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Wow! So much trauma for Anna and at such a young age. The details of the orphanage were absolutely gut wrentching. My heart broke for Elaine and Ian they both had such good intentions and to adopt a child is an incredible thing to do, but they did not get the support that they needed as new parents let alone new parents to a child who would have huge challenges. Thank God for Cathy!

Relieved at the ending

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This is the first Cathy Glass book i've read so wasn't sure what to expect. i enjoyed her description of fostering, of which she is an impressive practitioner. There's undoubtedly lots to learn about parenting here. The first part of the book is not a first-person 'memoir' as such. Cathy is for the most part reconstructing an account of parents adopting a child who later comes to her for foster care. The case study itself is very interesting but described in factual terms with a little too much focus on banal actions (for example, the trip from a Romanian [?] orphanage to the UK consists of endless detail of moving through the airport at the level of placing bags in the overhead locker etc). There is none of the emotional depth that one would expect from a novel (or even a more subjective first-person memoir). The effect of this pared down narrative is that the adoptive parents, idealistically bumbling into acquiring an abandoned orphan, come across as naive idiots. In one sense, this is exactly what they are--but a richer description of their emotional lives would've allowed a more nuanced portrayal. Cathy isn't a novelist, so it's unfair to expect this. She is much more compelling when describing her own experience and the immense skill she brings to foster care.

I did find the premise of overseas adoption of great interest. The lack of support for orphans with understandable attachment issues is staggering -- not only in their country of origin but in the familial and institutional contexts of the new country. Clueless parents are allowed to adopt with no guidance or oversight, making catastrophic mistakes. A GP advises that all will be fine -- then eventually it is determined that the adopted orphan has "reactive attachment disorder". Really? A "disorder"? Commonsense might tell us that someone who has never learned trust and attachment would struggle in relationships -- and the fact that professionals have such scant understanding of trauma is an indictment of their professions. Thank goodness for Cathy's commonsense and capacity for genuine care! This is worth reading for many reasons.

Cathy=amazing; book lacks emotional depth of novel

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