The Girl Behind the Door

February 22, 2016
In this memoirâsometimes riveting, but more often whiny and pedestrianâBrooks recalls how joy turned to exhaustion, anger, and frustration as he and his wife struggled to understand their adopted daughter, Casey. They located the young girl, who appeared to be a good match for them, and underwent the arduous journey to Poland to adopt her and joyously bring her home to start their new lives together. By the time she was eight, she descended into raging tantrums over minor matters, such as waiting in line for ice cream, and she refused to defer to authority or to give up control without intense protests. In adolescence, Casey's behavior oscillates between happiness and anger, and she often retreats behind the closed door of her bedroom after battles with her parents. Brooks is desperate to reach her, frequently blaming himself and painfully asking himself what he's doing wrong as a father. The tale grows all too typical by the time Casey threatens to run away and live in the streets and Brooks simply yells at her to go ahead. When she commits suicide, Brooks is stunned and devastated and wonders why his daughter killed herself, but unfortunately he is so consumed with himself and his attempt to be a good father that he never takes the time to connect or understand his daughter. In the end he looks not to himself but to others who might have helped him truly understand her, and he admits that "the information I needed to keep her alive was out there... I had never thought to look."

September 15, 2015

"The car is parked at the Golden Gate Bridge. I'm sorry." After daughter Casey's suicide, Brooks spent months trying to understand what happened, talking to her friends and teachers, plus doctors, therapists, and adoption specialists; Casey had been adopted from a Polish orphanage at 14 months. Now he devotes his time to mental health activism.

Copyright 2015 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.