At 39, Stephen Francis is fast approaching mid-life crisis. Depressed and subject to anxiety, panic attacks, exhaustion, burnout and intermittent bouts of alcoholism, his life is going into freefall. Only when he reaches his lowest point, and seeks the help of a counsellor, is he able to address the roots of his malaise, which lie in his early life as an adopted child. In this outspoken autobiography the author uncovers, with unerring frankness and honesty, the truth about his own life and that of the little spoken of -- and virtually taboo -- subject of adoption from the point of view of an adoptee who feels no sense of belonging to his adoptive parents. As he retraces the path that led to his shattering discovery that he is adopted -- and realises that the sense of alienation he has felt all his life is grounded in fact rather than paranoia, Stephen describes the inevitable breakdown and deconstruction of his identity and the slow healing process of reconstruction that can then begin.