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  • Philomena

  • A Mother, Her Son, and a Fifty-Year Search
  • Written by: Martin Sixsmith
  • Narrated by: John Curless
  • Length: 15 hrs and 33 mins
  • 4.7 out of 5 stars (11 ratings)

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Philomena cover art

Philomena

Written by: Martin Sixsmith
Narrated by: John Curless
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Publisher's Summary

Now a major motion picture directed by Stephen Frears (The Queen, High Fidelity) and starring Judi Dench (Skyfall, Notes on a Scandal) and Steve Coogan (The Trip, Hamlet 2): the heartbreaking true story of an Irishwoman and the secret she kept for 50 years. When she became pregnant as a teenager in Ireland in 1952, Philomena Lee was sent to a convent to be looked after as a "fallen woman". Then the nuns took her baby from her and sold him, like thousands of others, to America for adoption. Fifty years later, Philomena decided to find him.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the Atlantic, Philomena's son was trying to find her. Renamed Michael Hess, he had become a leading lawyer in the first Bush administration, and he struggled to hide secrets that would jeopardize his career in the Republican Party and endanger his quest to find his mother.

A gripping exposé told with novelistic intrigue, Philomena pulls back the curtain on the role of the Catholic Church in forced adoptions and on the love between a mother and son who endured a lifelong separation.

©2009 Martin Sixsmith (P)2013 Recorded Books
Women Great Britain United States 20th Century Motherhood Relationships
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What the critics say

“A searingly poignant account of forced adoption and its consequences.” ( Kirkus Reviews, starred review)
“Heartbreaking . . . a story that needed to be told.” ( The Independent)
“Emotionally compelling.” ( Library Journal)

What listeners say about Philomena

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Philomena

I enjoyed this book from the very beginning to the end. I am sad how Philomena was forced to give up her baby and the devastating effects on all parties. I am happy times have changed for the sake of the mother and child.

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  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars
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    3 out of 5 stars
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Not quite what I was expecting

While I did listen to the entire book, and certainly enjoyed the realism of the story, I was not expecting so much of the book to focus on the political nor the romantic life of the son she gave up. I was expecting the story to spend more time on their search for each other, and certainly more on Philomena's search for her son.

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