Plot summary
Wisconsin photographer and housewife Beth Cappadora leaves her youngest son, Ben, alone with his older brother for a brief moment in a crowded Chicago hotel lobby, while attending her high school reunion. The older son lets go of Ben's hand and Ben vanishes without a trace. Beth goes into an extended mental breakdown and it is left to her husband and owner of a restaurant, Pat, to force his wife to robotically care for their remaining two children, 7-year-old Vincent and infant daughter Kerry.
Nine years later a young boy named Sam asks Beth if she needs the lawn mowed. Beth suspects that this boy who lives with his "father" two blocks away is in fact her lost son, and while Sam mows the lawn, she takes photographs of him to show to her husband and teenage son, who then says that he suspected the boy's true identity all along. The parents contact Detective Candy Bliss who pops in to offer wise, albeit often cryptic and conflicting, advice to Beth. It is learned that at the reunion in Chicago, the celebrity alumna Cecilia Lockhart kidnapped Ben, renamed him Sam, and raised him as her own child until she was committed to a mental hospital, leaving Sam to be raised in a house only two blocks from the Cappadoras, by his adoptive father, the sensitive and intellectual George Karras.
Ben was raised by a Greek-American father for nine years, while his biological parents are Italian-American. Ben is a polite, intelligent American boy who takes great pride in participating in Greek cultural rituals, much to the frustration of Pat who wants to pretend that Ben was never really abducted. Ben is faced with the cultural identity that he grew up with, and the cultural identity he would have known had he not been kidnapped.
Ben's adoptive father agrees to surrender Ben to his birth family, while still living two blocks away. Torn between two worlds and having lost both of the parents that he knew, Ben expresses suicidal feelings to Beth.
Ben's only memory of his biological family is one of brother Vincent and thus over a one-on-one basketball game he absolves his brother of any responsibility for his abduction, and agrees to return to live with the Cappadoras.
At the end of the novel, many conflicts remain unresolved. Pat still has problems loving his sons: Ben because he can not relate to his personality and Vincent because he does not connect his teenage rebellion and cynicism to nine years of bad parenting. Beth has regained her position in the family as an equal parent, but Ben and Vincent's emotional scars may require years of intense therapy.
Buffalo '66 is a 1998 American crime comedy-drama film written and directed by Vincent Gallo, starring Gallo, Christina Ricci, Ben Gazzara and Anjelica Huston. The plot revolves around Billy Brown (Gallo), a man who kidnaps a young tap dancer named Layla (Ricci) and forces her to pretend to be his wife to impress his parents after he gets released from prison.
Red Shift is a 1973 fantasy novel by Alan Garner. It is set in Cheshire, England, in three time periods: Roman Britain, the English Civil War and the present.
Veronica Beatrice "Sally" Lockhart is a fictional character in a series of books by Philip Pullman.
Webster is an American sitcom television series that aired on ABC from September 16, 1983, to May 8, 1987, and in first-run syndication from September 21, 1987, to March 10, 1989. The series was created by Stu Silver.
Phil Mitchell is a fictional character from the BBC soap opera EastEnders, played by Steve McFadden. He was introduced to the soap opera on 20 February 1990 and was followed by his brother Grant, sister Sam and mother Peggy. Phil was one of the major characters introduced by executive producer Michael Ferguson, who wanted to bring in some macho male leads. Phil and his brother Grant became popularly known as the Mitchell brothers in the British media, with Phil initially portrayed as the more level-headed of the two thugs. Storylines featuring the Mitchell family dominated the soap opera throughout the 1990s, with Phil serving as one of the show's central characters and protagonist villains since the 1990s. McFadden temporarily left the series in late 2003, then returned in April 2005 for a brief appearance before making a permanent return in October 2005. A teenage version of Phil, played by Daniel Delaney, appeared in a flashback episode broadcast on 5 September 2022 which focuses on the Mitchell family in the 1970s.
Alistair Crane is a fictional character on the NBC/DirecTV soap opera Passions. Alistair is portrayed by John Reilly on a recurring basis from August 20, 2007, to May 20, 2008; before Reilly's contract run from January 21, 2005, to July 17, 2006, Alistair was also portrayed by David Bailey from September 27, 2004, to January 13, 2005, and by the duo of voice actor Alan Oppenheimer and body double Bill Dempsey. Alistair was also played by Jordan Baker when he was disguised as a woman named Charlie.
Sheridan Crane is a fictional character on the NBC/DirecTV soap opera Passions. She has been portrayed by McKenzie Westmore since the series began in 1999 and was briefly portrayed by Shannon Sturges, when Westmore was out sick in 2005, and by Kam Heskin in 2006, when Westmore was out on maternity leave, and again in 2008, while Westmore was out sick. In early flashback sequences Sheridan at age 12 was portrayed by Sara Paxton. When Sheridan's history was retconned and her flashback sequence age was downgraded from 12 to 6, she was played by Rylee Fansler. She is often seen as a "poor little rich girl" but her love for Luis Lopez-Fitzgerald made her true emotions rise. Sheridan was inherently a good person for much of the series, until the final year when she became a villain.
Eve Russell is a fictional character on the American soap opera Passions, which aired on NBC from 1999–2007 and on DirecTV from 2007–08. Created by the soap's head writer, James E. Reilly, Eve was played by Tracey Ross for the series' entire run. In 2003, actresses Amanda Maiden and Kimberly Kevon Williams played the character in flashbacks to her childhood and her time as a nightclub singer. Ross was initially hesitant to audition for the role following her negative experience on Ryan's Hope, but was attracted to the show after learning about its supernatural and fantasy elements. Her casting was part of NBC's attempt to include a racially diverse ensemble on daytime television. She based her performance on Joanne Woodward's role in the 1957 film The Three Faces of Eve and Catherine Halsey from Ayn Rand's 1943 novel, The Fountainhead.
Denise Fox is a fictional character from the BBC soap opera EastEnders, played by Diane Parish. She made her first appearance on 11 May 2006 and temporarily left EastEnders in early 2008 to give birth to her second child. Her leave-taking had coincided with the departures of Matt Di Angelo, Phil Daniels and Kellie Shirley. She returned to Walford on 6 June 2008. This is Parish's second role in EastEnders, as she previously played singer Lola Christie in 1998.
Dexter Morgan is a fictional character introduced as the antihero protagonist of the Dexter book series written by Jeff Lindsay, as well as the television series of the same name. In the television series, Dexter is portrayed by Michael C. Hall.
The Jennifer "Jennie" Spring/Janie Johnson series is a series of young adult novels written by Caroline B. Cooney. The series focuses on a young woman's attempts to discover the truth about her background after seeing her own image on a milk carton.
Joseph Kallinger was an American serial killer who murdered three people, and tortured four families. He committed the later crimes with his 12-year-old son Michael.
The Deep End of the Ocean is a 1999 American drama film directed by Ulu Grosbard, and starring Michelle Pfeiffer, Treat Williams, Jonathan Jackson, John Kapelos, and Whoopi Goldberg. It is based on the 1996 novel of the same name by Jacquelyn Mitchard, a bestseller that was the very first novel selected by Oprah Winfrey to be discussed on Oprah's Book Club in 1996. The film tells the story of a family’s reaction, when Ben, the youngest son is kidnapped and then found nine years later, living in the same town where his family had just moved. The film was released in theaters on March 12, 1999 by Columbia Pictures, and was a box office flop, grossing $28 million worldwide.
Habang May Buhay is a 2010 Philippine medical drama television series created by Enrico Santos and directed by Wenn V. Deramas. The series features an ensemble cast consisting of Queen of Pinoy Soap Opera Judy Ann Santos, Primera Kontrabida Gladys Reyes, Derek Ramsay, Joem Bascon, Will Devaughn, Rio Locsin, Tetchie Agbayani, John Arcilla, and Gina Alajar. The series premiered on ABS-CBN's Primetime Bida nighttime block from February 1 to June 18, 2010. This also marks Santos and Reyes' reunion project in 13 years since they were together in Mara Clara.
Jenna Heap is a leading character in the Septimus Heap book series by Angie Sage. She is the adoptive sister of Septimus and the adoptive daughter of Silas and Sarah Heap. Jenna has many friends in the book, and many enemies, too. Although she acknowledges they are not her birth family Jenna loves her adoptive familym including her seven brothers, her grandfather Benji, her parents, and her Aunt Zelda.
Vincent Van Patten is an American actor, former professional tennis player, and the commentator for the World Poker Tour.
Family of Strangers is a 1993 American-Canadian made-for-television drama film directed by Sheldon Larry. The film, which stars Melissa Gilbert and Patty Duke, is based on a book by Jerry Hulse and was shot on location in British Columbia.
Adoption does not exist formally as a practice in Jewish Law (Halacha), although rabbinic texts were not uniform on whether or not they recognized the validity of adoption and several examples of adoption take place in the Hebrew Bible and texts from Second Temple Judaism. The Hebrew word for adoption ‘אימוץ’ (immutz), which derives from the verb ‘אמץ’ (amatz) in Psalm 80 verse 16 and 18 meaning ‘to make strong’, was not introduced until the modern age. Jewish perspectives towards adoption promote two contradictory messages towards nurture and nature. On the one hand, Judaism expresses favourable attitudes towards adoption across religious movements and is widely viewed as a good deed (mitzvah). Based on the Talmudic teachings that when one raises an orphan in their home, "scripture ascribes it to him as though he had begotten him," Rabbis have argued that the commandment of procreation can also be fulfilled through the act of adoption. However, this interpretation raises a number of questions in relation to lineage and biological status, which is a core value in Halacha.
