A Good Likeness

Paul Arnott has two very early memories. One is as a two-year-old having a bath in a hotel sink in Tenby; the other, a Bromley afternoon, when Mr and Mrs Arnott told Paul that ‘his real Mummy and Daddy couldn’t keep him’ – & that they had adopted him. Then, for 30 years, he barely gave his adoption a moment’s thought – until the observation of the likeness between his son & himself provoked a quest to find his own biological parents … What he discovered was a near-complete family in Ireland – his parents had later married & had four other children, lighting a candle in his name every day for 33 years.

A GOOD LIKENESS weaves historical, political, religious & psychological thought into a personal narrative of the hopes, ‘what-ifs’ & discoveries of the author’s quest. He talks to those of his parent’s generation who did not yield to the pressure to abandon the illegitimate & to the children with very different stories to tell, as well as priests & politicians, newfound families & the supportive or unreconciled adoptive relatives.