Memory keeps the images of what was said, the reactions they elicited, the actions they led to, though rarely the exact words. A general awareness lives on many years later, but not the little steps that led up to the milestones.
—An excerpt from my memoir A Family, Maybe (2024), deleted from the final draft
It helps that I kept a diary, saved the faxes, the emails, the paperwork – something more tangible than memories to rely on. I saved the words.
Beyond the words, my memories of those days are like faded frescos, slowly coming into focus, emerging in their full drama only to dissolve back into the discolored plaster, or phase out into a blur. Some images are etched with the precision of three-dimensional grooves; others uncertain, their attributions wavering. A blur that keeps me trawling the murky waters of time.
On February 13, just a few blocks from the gray expanse of Columbia River dappled with raindrops, several dozen people gathered in a quaint, warmly lit Portland bookstore for the release party of my book, A Family, Maybe.
Questions were asked, pages read, books signed, and afterwards my friends took me out to celebrate, capping the end of a long journey.
This journey began 18 years earlier when we entered our foster adoption process. The turbulence set in early on. And the more the process took unexpected and often irrational turns, the more I felt the need to tell its story.
Once the process ended though, I could not bring myself to write about it. I had boxes of materials, hundreds of photos, videos, and emails, but I couldn’t face them. It felt too raw, too close in time. It still hurt.
It took me another four years, until 2012, to start cautiously jotting down the first sketches of the memoir. Teaching full time and raising two kids, I could only focus on writing during the summer and winter breaks.
By mid-2016, I had stitched together a cohesive suite of chapters, stretching past 115,000 words, which is about half longer than the published version. Then I cut, cut, and cut, minimizing sidelines and contemplative parts, like the excerpt above, and the manuscript eventually shrank to 70,000 words.
New parts suggested by reviewers were also being added, such as a historical overview of child welfare policies, the extension of the story’s end through our civil marriage in 2008 (see left), and a summary of 2009–22 political developments concerning gay families, in some of which we participated directly.
Meanwhile, the memoir was bought by a publishing house in 2019, then dropped from publication the next year, and then bought again in late 2022 by Ooligan Press, a teaching press of Portland State University.
Ooligan fast-tracked its publication, and we reached the book launch in just under 15 months. It took a ton of commitment, creative energy, and long nights on behalf of the press’s staff – mostly gradstudents in publishing, for whom my book was their hands-on project – to make it to the finishline this quickly, and I am forever grateful to them for it.
Maybe it’s not by chance that it took me 18 years to get here. 18 is a spiritual number. In Jewish tradition, numbers are represented by the letters of the Hebrew alphabet. Thus, 18 is the sum of chet (#8) and yud (#10), and together they comprise the word ‘chai’ – ‘life’ in English.
“We’re celebrating your book’s birth,” the press editor told me at the launch.
Indeed, and now it’s starting its own life, independent of me. So where is the book now? Where am I now?
January-March was the time of a busy media campaign promoting A Family, Maybe. Jon and I were interviewed on the NBC’s “Daytime” show by one of its affiliates.
After speaking during a morning commute radio show in the NY/NJ area, I gave another interview to a books-and-culture radio program syndicated in the Midwest. Several parenting podcasts interviewed me as well.
In Portland, besides the book launch, I gave talks about the book development in 2 writing courses at Portland State University. Those discussions with the faculty and students were deeply stimulating.
Back in LA, I’ve scheduled several book events for the coming months:
Page Against the Machine (bookstore), Long Beach, May 16
ONE Institute at USC, June 5
Book Soup (bookstore), West Hollywood, June 14
. . . and I am working on adding a few more. If you are in the area, please come!
So it’s been a very exciting time. Thank you for staying with me on this journey.
-Lane
PS. You can find more information about the book here.
Lane Igoudin | Author, Professor, Dad 