FINDING FAITH

Two women search for their biological fathers in Kriegman’s third novel in a series.

Florida resident Sol Morris is shocked when he gets a call from a stranger informing him that he fathered a daughter in Thailand with a sex worker many years ago, while her was serving in Vietnam in the early 1970s: “There wasn’t much to say about the arrangement…I got a jeep and I went to one of those fishbowls where you go to hire a ‘short-term girlfriend.’ ” She gave birth to a daughter who was adopted by an American couple. Now, in 2024, Susan Piper is married with three children of her own, and she’s investigating her origins. Meanwhile, Faith Givvers gets some unexpected news of her own: that her biological father is Native American, and that her birth mother is still alive and has been trying to get in touch with her. Faith’s search for details of her past is intertwined with Susan’s desire to get to know Sol, and the lives of all four people are changed forever. Readers with a personal relationship to adoption will likely get the most out of Faith’s and Susan’s tales. Kriegman’s painterly prose captures the nerves and ambivalence of meeting family members for the first time: “Susan got there first and asked for a booth in the back. The booth, the walls, and the narrow hanging lamps were all oranges and browns. It was a good, cozy place to meet. A few minutes later she saw him come through the door and recognized him right away.” The novel isn’t structured chronologically; instead, it jumps around in time as well as among major characters’ perspectives. Sometimes this creates intriguing contrasts, as when Susan’s perspective of the above meeting is informed by Sol’s previous experience of the same scene. At other times, though, the structure muddles the timeline and confuses the narrative.

An earnest, if sometimes-messy, novel of adoption.