Harper Perennial; 2008

Buy China Ghosts on Amazon.com >

A couple travels to a distant land to adopt a small child. They are filled with hope, anxiety, fear, joy, and more—a tumbling of emotions from within and from without. They are exhausted. There are surprises and intense worries. A new family is born. Love is amazing.

This is both a familiar and unique tale, a saga that any adoptive family will recognize. We love to tell it, and we love to hear it. Whatever form it takes, it is our story.

Jeff Gammage’s memoir, China Ghosts, is told from the perspective of a new father. Gammage is a wonderful and affecting writer—and also an expert journalist. China Ghosts interweaves his family’s story with a collage of observations about the country where his daughter was born, discussing both ancient history and the current social and political situations that have impacted so many families.

Mostly, this is a personal story, written in the present tense, as events and emotions unfold. Gammage details the ups and downs of his journey to fatherhood, his joy and sadness, worry and relief, his feelings of guilt and helplessness, anger and acceptance. And he writes beautifully. Here he is on the Great Wall, struggling to take in a vast landscape but able to focus on only one small face: “Looking out across the Jindu Mountains, I don’t feel history’s hand on my shoulder. I can’t see the breastplates of ancient warriors gleaming in the summer haze, nor hear the ghostly whinny of their horses as they ride again to long-concluded battles. All I see are trees. And all I can think of is a child, soon to be my daughter.”

This book will evoke memories for anyone who has gone through the adoption process, and it will bring to life the process for those who want to know more about the journey.

Reviewed by Eliza Thomas, author of The Road Home and The Red Blanket, lives in Vermont with her daughter, PanPan.