A. M. Homes: Persecuted by one's own mother
A.M. Homes
© Marion EttlingerShe can not remember. She no longer knows when and how her parents told her that she had been adopted as a newborn. She must have been very small then, she says. "The conditions have always been clear, I've never been particularly interested in who my biological parents are," says A. M. Homes this afternoon, laughing. Little break, shrug. "What should I say? It's a strange story."
And then Homes tells of experiences she never wanted to experience. She describes how she was sought and found by her birth mother and then persecuted as if by a stalker. A. M. Homes is an American bestselling author and is now 46 years old, with long brown hair and blue eyes that happily dance a few wrinkles when she laughs. Homes wears a black blouse, black jeans and rose-colored crocs, these rubber shoes with the holes that remind of a Swiss cheese. It's a warm, sunny day in New York, sitting in front of a cafe around the corner of her apartment in the West Village. Actually, A.M. Homes novels, but now her autobiography has been published: "The Daughter of the Beloved" (Kiwi, 236 pages, translation: Ingo Herzke), and this daughter is her.
A. M. Homes: "I am the daughter of the beloved"
She was 31, already a writer in New York when her past began again. Homes remembers her adoptive parents telling her that her birth mother wanted to contact her. "It was just before Christmas, 1992," she says, "I went to Washington to visit my family."
On the evening of my arrival, my mother said right after dinner: "Come into the living room, sit down, we need to tell you something." Her tone made me nervous. My parents are not that formal - you do not sit in the living room.
That's how her book begins. At that time A. M. Homes asked in a startled voice: "Who died?" Nobody, her mother replied, "We were called, someone is looking for you." A lawyer had contacted the adoptive parents.
When I get up, I know something about myself: I am the daughter of the Beloved. My birth mother was young and unmarried, my dad older and married. When I was born in December 1961, a lawyer called my adoptive parents and said, "Your package has arrived and it has a pink bow."
A. M. Homes as a baby
The life of her adoptive parents should be okay with the little girlWhen Phyllis and Joseph Homes got married, Phyllis brought a son into the marriage who suffered from severe kidney damage from birth and died at the age of nine. "I always felt my job in the family was healing, I was supposed to replace a dead boy, as a child that was a heavy burden," says A. M. Homes. To this day, she does not use her first names. Since her earliest childhood she has been called only with her initials: A. M. The A stands for Amy, to which M she may say nothing. "My middle name is irrelevant." More she does not reveal.
The foster parents Phyllis and Joseph Homes
Homes grew up in Chevy Chase, a suburb of Washington D.C., bourgeoisHer father was an artist, her mother was a teacher, and the family often went to the museum and the theater. Homes played drums. "I would like to become a musician in a band," she says, "but I was very shy, so I wrote dear, so I could be for myself."
At 19, she started her first novel about a 15-year-old whose father turns out to be a homosexual. "Jack" was released in 1989 and was awarded, among other things, the German Youth Literature Prize. Homes moved to New York, "I built a life, I was fine," she says. Then her birth mother showed up. Homes wrote a novel back then, "In A Country Of Mothers." "It was about a mother who had her child put up for adoption, and it was the first time I had processed something autobiographical." It should be the last time, but then her adoption story started.
A. M. Homes wanted to know more about her mother
From her adoptive mother, she learned the name of her birth mother: Ellen Ballman. Homes wavered, she was scared but also curious: how is this woman? What is she doing? Is she the way her mother had imagined her? "In my dreams, she was beautiful as a movie star and had a glamorous life that only I was missing." Homes called the lawyer, "I'd like a letter," she said - from her mother. Ten days later came post. Ellen Ballman wrote that it was "the hardest decision" of her life to break up with her baby, "but for a young girl it did not belong to having an illegitimate child."She ended with the words, "I never got married, I always felt guilty for giving away this little girl."
At the same time I read the letter slowly and quickly, I want to record everything and can not. I read it once and once again. What does she want to tell me?
Homes wanted to know more. Again she called the lawyer, "Could you ask who the father is?" Again Ballman wrote, "I should tell you about Norman Hecht, I worked for Norman at the Princess Shop in Washington D.C. At that time, I was 15." And pike already married and father. He began an affair with Ballman, which lasted seven years: He repeatedly promised her marriage, but he never divorced. When Ellen got pregnant, the affair was over.
A. M. Homes called her birth mother, "Her voice was scary," she says today. Deep, nasal, rough. "Oh God," Ballman shouted, "that's the best day of my life." And then: "When can we see each other?" But Homes needed time, and she wanted to determine contact with Ballman herself after the situation had been out of her control for 31 years. She did not tell her mother her last name, her phone number. When it was in contact, Homes wanted to decide for themselves.
But Ballman wanted to force things quickly, which they had not had for three decades: a mother-daughter relationship. "When you go out, put on a cashmere sweater so you do not get cold," she told her child. "Why do not you want to see me?" She urged. You care more about your dog than you care for me, you should adopt me and take care of me. " Homes replied, "You scare me."
With every phone ring, A. M. Homes held his breath
She turned away from Ellen Ballman, who was as different as she had hoped. And her father? Was he more comfortable? Homes did not give up hope, wrote him a letter and asked for a meeting. It took until the father stirred her.
But her mother left disturbing messages on her answering machine, she had researched: "I know who you are and where you live, I read your books." Homes did not answer the phone, she stopped breathing with each ring. Then her mother suddenly appeared at one of her readings. "You have the same physique as your father," she said. And disappeared. Homes can barely remember what her mother looked like: brown hair, tender bones, more of it did not hang from her.
Already an adult, the author first met her father
And then her dad was on the tape: "Call me." Norman Hecht lived in Washington D.C., Homes made an appointment with him. He had a rosy face, white hair - and thighs that Homes knew by himself, "stocky, fat - for the first time I saw someone else in my body," she says. The father told her about his affair with Ellen Ballman: "She was a hussy, too mature for her age." And he treated the daughter like his former lover, but without sexual contact: Hecht met Homes more often, but always secretly, his wife should learn nothing about it. He ordered them to cheap hotels and promised her again and again, she would get to know his family later sure. He persuaded her to a paternity test. As soon as the result was there (positive), he broke off the contact.
A. M. Homes has learned a lot about himself
A. M. Homes assumes that Norman Hecht is still alive; she never heard from him again. At that time, she often thought, "My head explodes, it feels like the hard drive of a computer that has to be replaced with a bigger one because there is too much information on it." Ellen Ballman died of kidney failure in 1998, and Homes drew a preliminary line: She wanted to go back to her life, it took a few years before she could devote herself to the "Beloved's Daughter".
"I was not looking," she says. "It was not the perfect story, that's why I wanted to write it down." Her book is about disappointment and humiliation, it is often oppressive, but always rousing.
Homes says she has learned a lot about herself throughout history, and most importantly, she wanted a child. Homes got a daughter, Juliet is now five years old.
