Sunday Arts Magazine

8 Mar 2021

Karen Ingram Talks to the Sunday Arts Magazine Team

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Karen Ingram Talks to the Sunday Arts Magazine Team

Lifting the Lid – a memoir born of adoption is Karen’s exploration of identity through her experience as a much longed for adopted baby girl and growing up in middle Australia in the 1960s and 1970s.

A product of a sexual encounter between a ‘fine’ protestant girl and a migrant Italian catholic musician, the author traverses uncharted territory where truth and secrets live in parallel. The clash of religion, language and culture proved no test for the passion and excitement experienced by men and women who were coming of age in the 1960s – a unique era of Australia’s social landscape.

Karen remembers her Mum telling her she was adopted at age three; at the age of eight she was told her father was Italian and on the night before her wedding she met her birth-mother at Melbourne airport. Finally meeting the woman of her dreams and finding familial traits in appearance and mannerism, filling in some of the gaps of her identity.

The book launches on the 23 February whilst 8 March, International Women’s Day, is another significant date in Karen’s story. As a four-week old baby, Karen travelled by train from Sydney to Newcastle accompanied by a nurse. With a name tag tied to her wrist, the nurse left the unaccompanied baby in the temporary care of the Station Master at Broadmeadow Station (Newcastle) awaiting collection by her adoptive mother. 8 March is also the date when she actually found her birth mother, Ann.