Tree of Strangers

'It packs a wallop' - John Campbell, TVNZ; 'A rare window into the inner questions one asks around identity, family, right and wrong, which, if you are anything like me, will leave you reflecting on your own journey for some time to come.' - Royna Ngahuia Fifield-Hakaraia, Shepherdess; 'Barbara Sumner's Tree of Strangers is, through her sharp intellect and exquisitely cinematic writing, a book of ... social and literary importance.' - Caroline Barron, Kete.

Barbara Sumner has had a long career in film and television and a journalist. She now runs the film production company Cloud South Pictures with her husband, Tom Burstyn. She has produced three feature documentaries, a number of television commercials and instructional films. In 2009 This Way of Life, their documentary movie about a family living simply in the Ruahine Ranges, won awards at film festivals around the world. In 2020 she is enrolled at the IML at Victoria University. She lives in Napier.

Better call Maysie - 9 Cold enough to cut your hair - 19 God fights back - 27 The Australia? - 35 Another kind of memory - 43 The changeling - 51 And the dolphins walked on water - 59 The opposite of Easter - 67 You are an electromagnetic field - 75 Abraham and Isaac went up a hill - 83 Husband, father, painter, paperhanger - 91 Wondering where the lions are - 99 How many times can you change your name? - 107 A cosmological view of time - 115 Hear the cry for home - 123 Oh so lucky - 131 Your limbic brain on relinquishment - 139 Sort of an orphan - 147 Your phantom baby - 155 Clarence Street forever - 163 The snob - 171 The cloth mummy - 179 Spooky action at a distance - 187 Game of statues - 195 Land of light - 203 All reasons, preferably special ones - 209 You are your DNA - 219 Notes about adoption - 225 Notes - 233 Further reading - 235 Acknowledgements - 236 About the author - 238