{"id":1176,"date":"2018-12-31T16:04:40","date_gmt":"2018-12-31T16:04:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wordpress.etypegoogle10.com\/?p=1176"},"modified":"2018-12-31T16:04:40","modified_gmt":"2018-12-31T16:04:40","slug":"lone-star-book-reviewsby-michelle-newby-nbcccontributing-editor-122","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wordpress.etypegoogle10.com\/?p=1176","title":{"rendered":"Lone Star Book ReviewsBy Michelle Newby, NBCCContributing Editor"},"content":{"rendered":"
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<\/span><\/span><\/span>Michelle Newby<\/span> is a reviewer for Kirkus Reviews<\/span> and Foreword Reviews, <\/span>writer, blogger at TexasBookLover.com, member of the Permian Basin Writers’ Workshop advisory committee, and a moderator for the Texas Book Festival. Her reviews appear in Pleiades Magazine, Rain Taxi, Concho River Review, Mosaic Literary Magazine, Atticus Review, The Rumpus, PANK Magazine,<\/span> and The Collagist.<\/span><\/p>\n

Lone Star Book Reviews
of Texas books appear weekly
at LoneStarLiterary.com<\/a><\/span><\/h1>\n
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Frank Billingsley<\/span> has been a favorite Houston, Texas, television weatherman for almost 30 years, serving as chief meteorologist for KPRC Channel 2 (NBC) since 1995. Born in Little Rock, Arkansas, in 1960, Billingsley was adopted and raised in Mountain Brook, Alabama. He received his Bachelor of Arts in journalism from Washington and Lee University and a certificate of broadcast meteorology from Mississippi State. He began his TV career in 1982 as a meteorologist in Virginia, then moved to Mississippi, and eventually Texas. Billingsley lives in Houston with his husband, Kevin Gilliard, an HR specialist for CompuCom Systems, Inc. They have raised one son, Morgan, who helps run the family fitness club, Quality Life Fitness. Swabbed & Found<\/span> is his first book.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

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<\/a><\/span>12.31.2017<\/h1>\n

MEMOIR<\/p>\n

Frank Billingsley<\/span><\/p>\n

Swabbed & Found: An Adopted Man\u2019s DNA Journey to Discover His Family<\/span><\/p>\n

Bright Sky Press<\/p>\n

Hardcover, 978-1-9429-4547-5, 200 pgs., $24.95<\/p>\n

October 1, 2017<\/p>\n

On a chilly December afternoon in 2013, <\/span>fifty-four-year-old Frank Billingsley,<\/span> beloved weatherman at Houston\u2019s KPRC since 1995, received an email that would fundamentally change his life. Billingsley, an adoptee, had always wondered about his biological family, but hadn\u2019t pursued the answers because of the usual reasons: fear of hurting his adopted family; fear he wouldn\u2019t like who he found; fear who he found wouldn\u2019t want to be found. This curiosity waxed and waned over the decades, but the email promised that DNA testing could answer his questions. Simply swab your mouth and send it off. Billingsley\u2019s need to know came roaring back, becoming an obsession that would devour the next year of his life.<\/p>\n

Swabbed & Found: An Adopted Man\u2019s DNA Journey to Discover His Family Tree<\/span> is the story of Billingsley\u2019s investigation. His story flows smoothly and quickly, with a teaser at the end of each chapter, a cliffhanger promising further revelations\u2014and not a little drama. \u201cAm I a product of a spring romance or a Spring Break dance?\u201d Billingsley wonders. \u201cJust who were those folks who had me, but couldn\u2019t keep me? Or just didn\u2019t want to keep me? Shouldn\u2019t I get in touch to at least thank them for giving me a better life?\u201d<\/p>\n

The first-person narration is funny, thoughtful, and engaging. There are thrilling, jaw-dropping moments in what Billingsley refers to as \u201ctreasure hunt\u201d mode, and there are tense moments, some with uncomfortable implications, when he feels selfish, remembering that \u201cjust because I wanted to know who I am, didn\u2019t mean [they] wanted to know who [they weren\u2019t].\u201d When you\u2019re clambering through your family tree, some branches are stronger than others.<\/p>\n

Diagrams of Billingsley\u2019s growing family tree appear regularly, making the narrative easier to visualize. A letter from the Arkansas Department of Human Services describing the circumstances of his biological mother\u2019s pregnancy and his birth, reproduced in its entirety, is profoundly moving, a heartbreaking narrative of poverty and the breakdown of a family in extremis.<\/span><\/p>\n

Billingsley is an engaging writer. The story of his wedding to Kevin, his partner for two decades, is sweet; his tales of Hurricane Ike are exciting and terrible. His biology lessons are fascinating and easily understood. He\u2019s also frequently funny, and I laughed aloud regularly. In the dedication, he writes, \u201cThis book is dedicated to my family: All 17,538 of you whom I have found so far. Not to worry, I changed all your names.\u201d<\/p>\n

Swabbed & Found<\/span> is a roller-coaster of conflicting emotions: frustration and relief, anxiety and joy. It requires courage to dive into family secrets, and requires the compassion to compromise. \u201cIf DNA stands for anything, I found,\u201d BIllingsley writes, \u201cit is: Do Not Assume.\u201d<\/p>\n

He has advice for anyone tempted to follow his lead: DNA can be tricky, and most experts on the subject will tell you that nothing beats old-fashioned genealogy; DNA can confirm relationships, and never lies, but it doesn\u2019t always connect the dots correctly; consider a therapist. \u201cThe Encyclopedia Brown adventure had begun to fade,\u201d he notes, \u201cwhen real names of real people with real lives and histories started showing up.\u201d<\/p>\n

On the other hand, he found an ancestor who fought at the Alamo, so it\u2019s all good.<\/p>\n

* * * * *<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Michelle Newby is a reviewer for Kirkus Reviews and Foreword Reviews, writer, blogger at TexasBookLover.com, member of the Permian Basin Writers’ Workshop advisory committee, and a moderator for the Texas Book Festival. Her reviews appear in Pleiades Magazine, Rain Taxi, Concho River Review, Mosaic Literary Magazine, Atticus Review, The Rumpus, PANK Magazine, and The Collagist. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1176","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.etypegoogle10.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1176","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.etypegoogle10.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.etypegoogle10.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.etypegoogle10.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.etypegoogle10.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1176"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.etypegoogle10.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1176\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.etypegoogle10.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1176"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.etypegoogle10.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1176"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.etypegoogle10.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1176"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}