Uncertain Fruit by Rebecca and Sallyann Majoya releases September 20th
Vermont Business Magazine Rootstock Publishing, a Vermont-based publisher announces the September 20th release of Uncertain Fruit: A Memoir of Infertility, Loss, and Love by Rebecca and Sallyann Majoya, of Rutland County, Vermont.
In this memoir, lesbian couple Rebecca and Sallyann dream of having a baby together. They try everything from foster care to fertility trials, and after nearly ten years of failed attempts, find an opportunity to participate in a local, private adoption with a teenage mom. Rebecca and Sallyann are overjoyed the first time they hold their newborn son in their arms.
They take him home from the hospital and welcome him into their family. But outside forces intervene and the birth mother reclaims the baby, sending the couple into a tailspin.
(Photo credit Brian Farnum)
To survive this traumatic loss, Rebecca and Sallyann lean on their love, reflect on their relationship’s past, and grow stronger in their grief.
“When we lost our tiny boy, we scoured bookstores for something to read to help us heal, but every adoption story had a happy ending,” said Rebecca Majoya. “No one had written a story like ours, with heartbreak at the end of a long journey. We knew we were not alone in our grief, and in our struggle to create and raise a child. We knew we were not alone with our empty arms. So we wrote our own story to help others, and ourselves, heal,” she said.
Rebecca Majoya received her B.A. from Cedarville University in Ohio, and her M.Ed. from Castleton University in Vermont. Sallyann Majoya has a B.A. in English from the University of San Diego and a B.S. in wellness & alternative medicine from Northern Vermont University. She is currently completing her graduate degree in speech-language pathology. They live together in central Vermont and collectively have experience working in education, writing, wellness, and social work.
Uncertain Fruit is available for the book trade at Ingram and for the public at local bookstores, online book retailers, and at Rootstock Publishing’s website (www.rootstockpublishing.com).
Release Date: September 20, 2022 / 218 pages / 5 x 8 / $18.99 Paperback ISBN: 978-1-57869-097-8 / $27.99 Hardcover ISBN: 978-1-57869-098-5 / LGBTQ Memoir /
Distributed Worldwide by Ingram
Advance Praise for Uncertain Fruit:
“Chronicling their extensive journey through physically and emotionally debilitating fertility treatments, explorations of adoption possibilities, and the heartbreak of relinquishing a baby they thought would be theirs, this book will resonate with all couples who’ve faced the harsh realities of infertility...a skillfully woven narrative that only the two of them could have birthed.”
—Linda Peavy, poet and co-author of Frontier House
“Rarely have the urgent demands of a woman’s biological clock been so vividly described as in Uncertain Fruit, a moving account of a lesbian couple’s years of struggle to acquire a baby... Richly evocative prose recreates their joyful days of bonding with the baby—only to have his teenage birth mother reclaim him. The numbing grief this loss causes the two women is also poignantly conveyed. Part of the sadness for the reader is knowing that so many potentially endangered babies need the safe and loving home life that Rebecca and Sallyann longed to provide.”
—Lisa Alther, author of Swan Song
“Rebecca and Sallyann have written an amazing and powerful book. ‘The greater the love, the more enveloping the grief,’ they write in the epilogue, and that could not be more true as you read about their life together. They deftly weave the story of their attempt at adoption through the various strands of their individual lives: how they met, how they fell in love, and forming a family that included Rebecca’s two sons. It’s a beautiful and heartbreaking tale all at once, and we are all the richer for it.”
—Mark Redmond, author of Called: A Memoir
About Rootstock Publishing
With offices in downtown Montpelier, Vt., Rootstock Publishing is a hybrid publisher and an imprint of Multicultural Media, Inc. Their books have won multiple book awards such as the IPPY, Foreword INDIES, the IBPA Ben Franklin Award, and Independent Book Publishers of New England awards, among others. They publish poetry, fiction, nonfiction, YA and picture book manuscripts by authors from all over the globe. Uncertain Fruit is their 38th published book! Learn more at rootstockpublishing.com.
