In this gripping memoir, A.M. Homes tells of the bizarre chain of events that unfold when her birth mother comes looking for her 30 years after giving her up for adoption.

Homes is an acclaimed novelist, and if this devastating story weren't her life, it would be a novelist's dream.

		"THE MISTRESS'S DAUGHTER" By A.M. Homes Viking ($24.95)

Her biological mother, Ellen, was once a fetching young shop clerk who became the mistress of her married boss, Norman. He promises to leave his family for her but doesn't, leaving her devastated and pregnant. She gives up the baby at birth and pines for what might have been.

Thirty years later, she contacts her long-lost daughter, a famous writer, and things get weird.

Homes writes about her first awkward phone call with her mother, the one that shakes the very foundation of her identity:

"Every nuance, every detail means something. I am like an amnesiac being awakened. Things I know about myself, things that exist without language, my hardware, my mental firing patterns -- parts of me that are fundamentally, inexorably me are echoed on the other end, confirmed as a DNA match. It is not an entirely comfortable sensation."

Or the sensation of watching her birth father, Norman, walk and recognizing his low-slung hips, thick thighs and his bear-paw hands as hers. "This is the first time I have ever seen anyone else in my body."

I first read her knockout story when part of it appeared in The New Yorker. As an adoptive mother, I was riveted. I handed out copies to friends, adopted adults, adoptive parents and writers with no connection to adoption. Everyone was blown away by the fierce honesty of her fractured feelings of being adopted.

So I was thrilled to learn that she had expanded the story into this book.

By far, the biggest emotional punch of the book is the first 105 pages, an expanded version of her magazine story.

She writes about her birth mother tracking her down, following her, showing up unannounced at a book signing. Homes retreats as Ellen smothers her with attention. And then Ellen dies, leaving her to mourn the mother she barely knew.

While she loves her adoptive mother, she is annoyed at her secrecy and for destroying letters from her birth mother. "My mother didn't want me to be adopted. She wanted me to be hers."

But the biggest pain is inflicted by Norman, who hides her from his other children. She remains a ghost daughter, an embarrassment he would rather forget.

But for all the devastation of the first half of the book -- she enjoys the movie "Schindler's List" because it matches her mood -- the second half is redemptive as she compulsively researches the genealogy of both her birth family and her adoptive family.

Homes culls letters and mementos to understand the pain and disillusionment of her birth mother after she dies

This is a thrilling memoir for anyone who has ever pondered what strange mix of biology and environment makes us who we are.