BOOK BUZZ
I Would Meet You Anywhere is a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award!
San Francisco Chronicle
Susan Ito’s memoir delves deep into an adoptee’s origin story
“I Would Meet You Anywhere” is a raw and compassionately told story that accomplishes what any good memoir aims to do: It chronicles one person’s unique and complicated experience in a way that’s universal, and warm enough to welcome in readers from varied family histories. (read article)
The Associated Press
”“I Would Meet You Anywhere” is breathtaking. Like a master quilter, Ito is able to find the patterns and fit them together in a beautiful, cohesive story that’s balanced and satisfying, working in tandem to create a blanket of meaning enshrouding an entire life, plus some.” - Donna Edwards
Read the entire review here.
Library Journal (★ Starred Review) - named one of 2023’s best Memoirs!
This is a story that was never supposed to be told, the author’s life and origins a secret that was never meant to be revealed. These were the terms and promises of the institution of closed adoption—never agreed to, of course, by Ito (coeditor, A Ghost at Heart’s Edge: Stories and Poems of Adoption) herself. While books about adoption often address themes like secrets, loss, displacement, and grief, this thoughtful memoir expertly and courageously depicts the specifics and context of Ito’s story—the legacy of a U.S. concentration camp for Japanese people; growing up in all-white small towns; the challenges of reconnecting with family members who either clung to promised anonymity or weren’t aware of the author’s existence. Readers will be immersed in Ito’s yearning and bewilderment when basic facts (the identity of her biological father; that her children are indeed her birth mother’s grandchildren) are denied or deflected. The book’s descriptions of being hanbun hanbun (half and half) are beautifully and painfully wrought and illuminating. VERDICT The tension and fear of wanting to tell one’s story, to be seen, to know and be known are palpable throughout Ito’s stunning, brave, extraordinary book. —Amy Cheney
Interview with Leslie Pietrzyk for the Work-in-Progress series
Author Talk with Tony Corsentino at Winchester Public Library (Public TV recording)
Interview with Alice Stephens in CRAFT journal
PODCAST: “Creating A Family” Interview with Cressa Magown
PODCAST: Featured on the entire season of Adoption: The Making of Me with Louise Brown & Sarah Reinhardt
PODCAST: “Adoptees On” Interview with Haley Radke
PODCAST: Interview with Jennifer Dyan Ghoston on Once Upon A Time in AdopteeLand
Permission to Write Her Story: A Conversation with Susan Ito (by Susan Devan Harness) on the Rumpus
What to Read If You Want to Understand Adoptees in the Rumpus. I was asked to compile a list of books that influenced me as a writer and adoptee. Some are real blasts from the past, and others more contemporary.