That's My Baby: A Novel

“Why would you and I change identities? What would be the point of that?” Billie leans forward in her chair and rocks back and forth. “What would be the point?” she says. “What would be the point?”

That's My Baby opens in 1998, as Hanora Oak – the baby adopted at the end of Frances Itani's Giller Prize shortlisted Tell – is now an author in her seventies and starting her research on a little known Canadian artist, while distracted by personal issues. Told that she was adopted on her eighteenth birthday, Hanora has spent the past sixty years searching for her own identity, and through her writing research and her care for a cousin who is succumbing to dementia, Hanora discovers all the ways in which identities can be lost...and found. Unfortunately, I found the plot of this book to be too deliberate, the writing to be too uninspiring, and the entire reading experience to have been a little pointless.

The timeline bebops between Hanora's life in the present – taking care of her cousin, Billie, who progressively loses her grip on reality, and researching the artist who, after suffering a concussion during a bombing raid in WWII, eventually lost her own mind – and Hanora's life from the time of her 18th birthday (when she learned she was adopted and essentially turned her back on the devoted parents who raised her), through a transatlantic voyage she and Billie made in 1939 (during which they made a fateful decision to switch identities for the trip), Hanora's years in England as a journalist, and a brief sketch of what came after the war. The jazz of Duke Ellington (who was also on that sea voyage), Ella Fitzgerald, and others of that era, figures prominently (and provides many of the best scenes in the book), and much is made of art (painting, writing, photography) and its value in preserving a person's individuality. In the end, I found there to be just too many coincidences and repetitions of themes to make the whole believable, and for what is essentially a melodrama, the story never touched me emotionally. 

Sometimes the writing was lyrical, as when Hanora discovers that her cousin has been keeping bizarrely detailed lists of everything she eats:

How long has Billie's memory been slipping away?
She has written a history of eating. Of sustenance.
A history of insomnia.
A history of tears.
And fears.
On paper, as if to make herself real, Billie has been doing whatever she could, in futile attempts to preserve her sense of self.

But most of the time, the writing was minimalistic:

There is no one left to ask about location anymore. Well, remote cousins would be living around there somewhere. Descendants of descendants of pioneer families. She could also return to Deseronto to see who is still around town. Breeda, for one. Breeda never left. She and Saw raised their family there. They stay in touch once a year, exchanging messages at Christmas. Calhoun is still alive and lives with Breeda and Saw. Calhoun is now 103.

And I found it all a little dull. A little pointless. Just not for me.