By Jocelyn Maggard | SDUN Reporter

Though the memoir is an entire publication of one person’s story, told entirely through their perspective, the role of the memoir is greater than that. It is not about who can tell the most outlandish story but who can tell their personal story in a way universal enough so the audience can relate.

University Heights resident Patrick McMahon recently self-published his memoir “Becoming Patrick” which he began writing in 1998.

While the memoir explores his search for his birth mother, McMahon says his story is about “the experiences of separation and connection that we all go through.”

The story begins with McMahon, at the age of 32, asking about the details of his adoption, and outright he begins to jot down a story without even realizing it: “Dazed, I scramble for pen and paper, as these questionable events become my origins,” he writes on page 7.

Born in Chicago in November 1957, McMahon was adopted three days after his birth, and until 20 years ago, he knew very little about his biological family.

McMahon can articulate his internal, which he also refers to as primal, yearning to find and get to know his birth mother despite his anxieties.

McMahon said he was anxious about what he would find out about his family but also worried he would alienate his adoptive family. Once he met his biological mother, McMahon had to once again come out as a gay man, in which he feared rejection.

McMahon says he loves the family who raised him, which is predominately the reason he waited so long to ask about his adoption; he said he didn’t want to create waves. However, after finding his mother, and four other biological siblings, he could feel a different kind of connection.

“Understanding where our mannerisms, impulses, looks, come from makes you feel like a human being,” he says.

Despite having a compelling and emotionally wrought story to tell, McMahon did not consider himself a writer and had no intention on pursuing publication, though he did journal extensively through the search process, filling three or more notebooks a year.

“The journal was my salvation. It was a way of getting through all these emotional events day to day,” he says.

Being an engineer and a musician, McMahon has a brain wired for order, so from the pages of the journals he created an acutely detailed outline, and shaved that down to the story needed for the memoir.

To find out more about “Becoming Patrick,” visit www.deeprootpress.com.