THE SECRET LIFE OF DOROTHY SOAMESBOOK CLUB KITA riveting family drama evocative of Angela’s Ashes and The Glass Castle, about a woman who discovers the shocking secret at the centre of her mother’s life.

Justine had always been told that her mother came from royal blood. The proof could be found in her mother’s elegance, her uppercrust London accent - and in a cryptic letter hinting at her claim to a country estate. But beneath the polished veneer lay a fearsome, unpredictable temper that drove Justine from home the moment she was old enough to escape. Years later, when her mother sent her an envelope filled with secrets from the past, Justine buried it in the back of an old filing cabinet.

Overcome with grief after her mother’s death, Justine found herself drawn back to that envelope. Its contents revealed a mystery that stretched back to the early years of World War II and beyond, into the dark corridors of the Hospital for the Maintenance and Education of Exposed and Deserted Young Children. Established in the eighteenth century to raise ‘bastard’ children to clean chamber pots for England’s ruling class, the institution was tied to some ofhistory’s most influential figures and events. From its role in the development of solitary confinement and human medical experimentation to the creation of the British Museum and the Royal Academy of Arts, its impact on Western culture continues to reverberate. It was also the environment that shaped a young girl known as Dorothy Soames, who bravely withstood years of physical and emotional abuse at the hands of a sadistic headmistress - a resilient child who dreamed of escape as German bombers rained death from the skies.

Heartbreaking, surprising and unforgettable, The Secret Life of Dorothy Soames is the true story of one woman’s quest to understand the secrets that had poi-soned her mother’s mind, and her startling discovery that her family’s fate had been sealed centuries before. ABOUT

THE AUTHORJustine Cowan was born and raised in the San Francis-co Bay Area. Growing up wandering through California’s majestic redwood forests, she became a passionate envi-ronmentalist, and has spent most of her career working to protect her nation’s natural resources.

She graduated from the University of California, Berkeley with a BA in Economics. She received her law degree with honours from Duke University School of Law, where she was a member of the Editorial Board of Duke Law Journal. She also served as a law clerk for the Honourable Robert L. Echols, United States District Court, Middle District of Tennessee. Justine has received numerous awards for her public service.

Justine lives in Atlanta, Georgia with her husband, Patrick, along with their cat Mingus (who joined the family after he was discovered sleeping on their bed), and their border collie Charlie Bucket (who was an instant foster fail).The Secret Life of Dorothy Soames is her first book.

Credit: Patrick Cowan

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS (Warning – spoilers ahead!)

1. The book opens with an epigraph from Oliver Twist: To do a great right, you may do a little wrong. Why do you think Cowan chose this particular phrase? Dickens’ full quote is as follows:

Thus, to do a great right, you may do a little wrong; and you may take any means which the end to be attained, will justify; the amount of the right, or the amount of the wrong, or indeed the distinction between the two, being left entirely to the philosopher concerned, to be settled and determined by his clear, comprehensive, and impartial view of his own particular case.

2. Cowan was reminded of The Handmaid’s Tale when researching the book. Were you? How do you think gender roles were similar in the two books?

3. What was the most interesting historical fact that you didn’t know about before reading the book?

4. Cowan writes: Now I understand why I grieved [my mother’s] death so intently, why pain coursed through my body, leaving me exhausted and frail those weeks after she closed her eyes for the last time. I mourned not the loss of what I once had, but what had been taken from me before I drew my first breath or took my first steps.

What did she mean by this? What had been taken and who took it from her?

5. How is the book structured? Why do you think the author chose to write the book this way?

6. How did the role of women and men in child-rearing evolve in the book? In setting policies for child welfare? How do you think history would have played out if the roles of men and women had been different? What if, for example, the Ladies of Distinction were given more input into the operation of the Foundling Hospital?

7. What do you think happened between Dorothy and her mother Lena after they were reunited? Cowan’s mother seemed to bare all of her secrets when she wrote her memoir, but chose not to share the details of her relationship with her own mother. Why do you think that those chapters were omitted, not even to be shared with her fellow foundlings?

8. What does forgiveness mean to you? When should you forgive someone who has harmed you? Do you think that Cowan forgave her mother in the end?

9. Do you think that Thomas Coram made the right choice to encourage his fellow Englishmen to think of illegitimate children as useful servants for society?

10. What purpose did Cowan’s anger serve? Was it justified? How has anger served you in your life?

11. What feelings did you experience when reading about the role of the Governors in scrutinizing Lena’s virtue? What were your impressions of the circumstances that existed in England at the time that Lena gave up her child?

12. Historian Ruth McClure talks about the dehumanisation of foundlings as one of the greatest obstacles in Coram’s efforts to protect them, noting that ‘for the most part, the attitude of the average Englishman towards foundlings was not recognized as a prejudice.’ Did this surprise you? Does it remind you of any other moments in history?

13. Do you think Cowan made the right decision in not reading her mother’s memoir when her mother was still alive? Do you think anything would have been different if she had read it before her mother’s death? Would you have made the same choice?

14. What role do names serve in the book? Does it matter how or why a name is chosen? Dorothy had three names during her lifetime. What did each name represent to her? What do you think about Lydia’s decision to keep her ‘foundling’ name?

15. What about Cowan’s experiences resonated the most with you? Were there any choices that she made that you couldn’t relate to?

16. Both the author and her mother traveled to England at about the same time in their lives to understand how the past had shaped them. Was that a coincidence? Do you think it is part of the human experience to try to understand where we came from?

17. What responsibility do you think a child has to a parent? Or a parent to a child? Have societal views about these roles changed over time?

18. Would this book make a good movie? What scenes were particularly vivid for you?