Whose Song to Sing

How does an adopted person construct their identity? In this collection of essays, Ben Wildsmith relates the key events of a turbulent life and considers the factors that shaped his nature.  

Examining notions of culture, belonging, authenticity and family, Whose Song to Sing? takes us from 1970s Birmingham to South Wales in the 2020s, via America, Australia and Thailand.  

Wildsmith offers an adoptee’s take on society – ironic and occasionally caustic – as he struggles to carve out a space within it. As family life disintegrates, he seeks refuge in culture, always returning to the songs and stories of the Valleys, the gift of his adoptive grandfather.  

We follow a path from childhood privilege to addiction and despair, before the healing power of community offers a route to happiness.  

Unflinching and frequently comic, Whose Song to Sing? shows how establishing a viable identity from uncertain materials can be a creative act, and a life’s work.  

‘Ben Wildsmith’s life so far – and at a mere fifty-two he’s still a bit to go – has been a tormented creative whirlwind. He’s one of the best Appalachian pickers I’ve heard outside the States, a political journalist of curiosity and scepticism and now a memoir essayist of power, entertainment and heart-wrenching recollection. His Whose Song To Sing, which may sound like a disclosure of the life of an adoptee – and it is that – is also, magnificently, a million things more. It rolls from the socialism of Tylorstown to the renegade leftism of Solihull, from hymns and arias to rock and roll, from the Pendyrus to his grandfather’s love of rugby, from dark recollections of adopted fathers to alcoholic breakdowns, wavering recoveries, fiercely difficult work as a carer, then loss and then love. Ben’s telling of a life already further packed with incident than most of us could ever cope with is absolutely unputdownable.’

Peter Finch

‘This book is everything that a memoir should be: gripping, informative, moving, hilarious, a fascinating doorway into the fun and frozen wastes of being someone else, a glimpse into a life well and vividly lived. Laceratingly intelligent, fearlessly self-analytical, it is, in part, a sequence of joyous, if hard-won, awakenings, into rugby, politics, literature, addiction, adoption, music, Welshness, love of several kinds. All praise.’

Niall Griffiths