WONDERLAND
Memoir of a Black-Market Adoption

Publisher's Weekly: "Meyer's haunting debut... is both a poignant personal narrative and a work of impressive reporting."
Handed over as an infant along a Texas hospital curb in 1970, no judge, no paperwork, no questions asked, Patricia grew up celebrating a made-up birthday, haunted by nightmares of "The Dark Man". Her parents, blackmailed by the attorney they hired to skirt the adoption system, faced an impossible choice: go to the police or pay up. They paid and looked the other way to keep their paperless baby.
Navigating her mother's violent alcoholism and caring for her disabled and depressed 600-pound father, Patricia spent her childhood trying to save her saviors, unaware of the lifelong threat that haunted them. At any moment, someone could come back for their child.
Part detective story, part searing family portrait, part historical reckoning, Wonderland exposes what happens when maternal desperation meets need and greed, when falsified documents, family secrets, and systemic abuses can no longer sustain one woman's relentless search for truth.
A tumble down the rabbit hole of America's baby trade, Patricia delivers a haunting reckoning with Baby Scoop Era exploitation that asks: as reproductive rights disappear, are we headed to Baby Scoop 2.0.