Finding Family

Peter Martin is a senior projects editor at the University of Ottawa
Press.

Rick Ouston, a well-known CBC broadcast journalist based in Vancouver,
was an adopted child. This book is an account of his search for his
natural family.

Ouston’s adoptive parents never hid the truth about his origins. It
was public policy, buttressed by legislation and social custom, that
concealed the identity of his biological parents. Trained as an
investigative journalist, Ouston was well-equipped to break through the
conspiracy of silence. He managed to find not only his biological mother
but also a sister and a half-brother. Ouston writes vividly and honestly
about the emotional and practical complications that arise from
“finding family.”

Even with its digressions and repetitions, and occasional mawkishness,
this generally engrossing book is well worth reading.