A review by Michèle Dawson Haber
In What They Never Told Us: True Stories of Family Secrets and Hidden Identities Revealed (Skyhorse Publishing, December 2024) Gail Lukasik picks up where her 2017 best-selling memoir, White Like Her: My Family’s Story of Race and Racial Passing, left off, describing how telling her mother’s story of racial passing catapulted Lukasik into the public spotlight and transformed her into a spokesperson for others encountering sudden genetic surprises. Strangers began approaching her looking to share their stories. and it was this experience that convinced her to write What They Never Told Us. “The first step toward understanding the impact of family secrets is to give them a voice.” Lukasik does so with respect and care in this fascinating collection of interviews with adoptees, donor conceived people, and individuals who have uncovered previously hidden genetic histories.
The book is divided into thirds, with each part focused on a different grouping of people affected by sudden identity shocks. The first group consists of those who, like Lukasik, discover their racial or ethnic identity is not what they thought it was. In 1995, while looking up census records of her family, she discovered the grandfather she’d never met was Black. She realized then that her mother had been passing as white, never telling her husband or her children about her racial background. Abiding by her mother’s wish not to reveal the truth to anyone, Lukasik waited until her mother died to begin exploring what this new information about her ancestry meant to her. Thirty years later she’s still exploring, asking questions, and challenging perceptions of racial identity.
The second part of What They Never Told Us is devoted to stories of adoptees whose parents withheld crucial information about their identities. In some cases, their parents withheld the very fact of their adoption and in other cases the ethnic origins of their biological parents. In part three, Lukasik talks with donor conceived people, including four half-siblings who meet after discovering they were conceived with the same sperm donor.
The destabilization that each of these genetic surprises engenders is profound. Everyone interviewed by Lukasik had something essential to their identity withheld from them by the adults in their lives. And, despite the differences in their stories, they all find themselves wondering the same thing: “Who am I?”
The other common question haunting the individuals Lukasik interviews is, “Why did my parent lie to me?” They feel anger, betrayal, disappointment, but also sadness. So many of the secrets held primarily by the mothers in these stories were forged in shame and fear. Although attitudes to premarital sex and interracial dating have changed, the secret keepers can’t adapt. As one interviewee told Lukasik, “I felt sad for her. What a wasted opportunity for me to be able to show compassion for her.” I expect this will resonate deeply for many who have uncovered family secrets after the death of their parents.
As a step adoptee, I can’t get enough of stories that explore questions of identity and family secrets. Although my mother and adoptive stepfather never lied or betrayed me, they did withhold information about my birth father, which, together with my never having known him and not looking like anyone in my family, affected my sense of self. But identity is an ineffable concept few spend any time thinking about—unless they have to. As each interviewee recounted how friends and family ignorantly trivialized their experiences with platitudes of “it doesn’t matter” and “you’re still the same person,” I felt seen.
What They Never Told Us is a riveting page turner. I was propelled from story to story, each one more gobsmacking than the last. Lukasik often hears her interviewees say, “You can’t make this stuff up.” This book will appeal to anyone interested in tales of family secrets, but its chief value will be to those going through similar identity upheavals. For all those suffering in silence, afraid to give voice to their experiences or believing they are making too big a deal of them, the brave and generous voices in Lukasik’s book should convince them they are not alone.
Michèle Dawson Haber is a Canadian writer, potter, and union advocate. She lives in Toronto and is working on a memoir about family secrets, identity, and step adoption. Her writing has appeared in The Manifest Station, Oldster magazine, Salon, and in the Modern Love column of The New York Times. You can find her at www.micheledhaber.com or at her Substack, Who’s My Daddy?