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We Were Once a Family
- A Story of Love, Death, and Child Removal in America
- Narrated by: Suehyla El-Attar
- Length: 7 hrs and 34 mins
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Publisher's summary
National Book Critics Circle Award—Winner, 2023
Long-listed, Barnes and Noble Best New Books of the Year 2023
L.A. Times Book Prize—Finalist, 2023
Long-listed, NPR Best Book of the Year, 2023
Short-listed, Helen Bernstein Book Award, 2024
Long-listed, New Yorker Best Books of the Year, 2023
Long-listed, Carnegie Medal, 2024
Long-listed, Publishers Weekly Best Books of the Year, 2023
Long-listed, CPL: Chicago Public Library Best of the Best, 2023
Long-listed, Audible.com Best of the Year, 2023
Long-listed, Washington Post Best Books of the Year, 2023
One of Literary Hub's most anticipated books of 2023
"Narrator Suehyla El-Attar gives an impassioned performance that enhances the touching, terrifying tale of social injustice and systemic failure. Her delivery is compelling and clear, evoking a captivating listening experience from this true-crime tragedy."—Library Journal
The shocking, deeply reported story of a murder-suicide that claimed the lives of six children—and a searing indictment of the American foster care system.
On March 26, 2018, rescue workers discovered a crumpled SUV and the bodies of two women and several children at the bottom of a cliff beside the Pacific Coast Highway. Investigators soon concluded that the crash was a murder-suicide, but there was more to the story: Jennifer and Sarah Hart, it turned out, were a white married couple who had adopted the six Black children from two different Texas families in 2006 and 2008. Behind the family's loving facade, however, was a pattern of abuse and neglect that went ignored as the couple withdrew the children from school and moved across the country. It soon became apparent that the State of Texas knew very little about the two individuals to whom it had given custody of six children—with fateful consequences.
In the manner of Adrian Nicole LeBlanc's Random Family and other classic works of investigative journalism, Roxanna Asgarian’s We Were Once a Family is a revelation of vulnerable lives; it is also a shattering exposé of the foster care and adoption systems that produced this tragedy. As a journalist in Houston, Asgarian became the first reporter to put the children’s birth families at the center of the story. We follow the author as she runs up against the intransigence of a state agency that removes tens of thousands of kids from homes each year in the name of child welfare, while often failing to consider alternatives. Her reporting uncovers persistent racial biases and corruption as children of color are separated from birth parents without proper cause. The result is a riveting narrative and a deeply reported indictment of a system that continues to fail America’s most vulnerable children while upending the lives of their families.
A Macmillan Audio production from Farrar, Straus and Giroux.
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Critic reviews
2023, National Book Critics Circle Award - Nominee, Short-listed
2023, Barnes and Noble Best New Books of the Year, Long-listed
2023, L.A. Times Book Prize - Finalist, Short-listed
2023, NPR Best Book of the Year, Long-listed
2023, New Yorker Best Books of the Year, Long-listed
2024, Carnegie Medal - Winner
2023, CPL Chicago Public Library Best of the Best, Long-listed
2023, L.A. Times Book Prize - Winner
2023, Audible.com Best of the Year, Long-listed
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2024, Helen Bernstein Book Award, Short-listed
2023, Publishers Weekly Best Books of the Year, Long-listed
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"Asgarian debuts with a comprehensive and searing look at systemic issues within the foster care and adoption systems . . . Emotional and frequently enraging, it adds up to a blistering indictment . . . Sensitive, impassioned, and eye-opening, this is a must-read."—Publishers Weekly (starred review)
“Roxanna Asgarian’s stunning debut, We Were Once A Family, paints a stark picture of the systemic failures of our child welfare system. Asgarian shows the myriad ways in which the very institutions charged with our children's safety often exacerbate their predicaments—and sometimes, as with the Hart family, can end in unmitigated and unnecessary tragedy. This book is sobering, but also urgent, advocating for change with the strength of a howl in the wild.”—Rachel Louise Snyder, author of No Visible Bruises
"Roxanna Asgarian could have written another sensational account of the six Black children murdered by the white couple who adopted them. Instead, We Were Once A Family is not only the most in-depth investigation of the tragedy, but also a devastating exposé of the unjust and inhumane child welfare system that caused it to happen. Asgarian shatters the dominant rosy adoption narrative popularized by the government and media by telling the forgotten experiences of foster children, adoptees, and birth families—all traumatized by the forcible separation from their loved ones. This riveting book will raise public awareness of the urgent need to end our disastrous approach to struggling families by radically reimagining child welfare policies and building community-based supports that truly keep children safe."—Dorothy Roberts, author of Torn Apart: How the Child Welfare System Destroys Black Families—And How Abolition Can Build A Safer World
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Andrea Elliott follows eight dramatic years in the life of Dasani, a girl whose imagination is as soaring as the skyscrapers near her Brooklyn shelter. In this sweeping narrative, Elliott weaves the story of Dasani’s childhood with the history of her ancestors, tracing their passage from slavery to the Great Migration north. As Dasani comes of age, New York City’s homeless crisis has exploded, deepening the chasm between rich and poor. She must guide her siblings through a world riddled by hunger, violence, racism, drug addiction, and the threat of foster care.
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Narration is completely over the top
- By Heather on 10-14-21
By: Andrea Elliott
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To the End of June
- The Intimate Life of American Foster Care
- By: Cris Beam
- Narrated by: Susan Ericksen
- Length: 12 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
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Performance
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Story
Who are the children of foster care? What, as a country, do we owe them? Cris Beam, a foster mother herself, spent five years immersed in the world of foster care looking into these questions and tracing firsthand stories. The result is To the End of June, an unforgettable portrait that takes us deep inside the lives of foster children in their search for a stable, loving family. Beam shows us the intricacies of growing up in the system - the back-and-forth with agencies, the rootless shuffling between homes, the emotionally charged tug between foster and birth parents.
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Good dissertation
- By Nim on 03-13-19
By: Cris Beam
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A Daughter's Deadly Deception
- The Jennifer Pan Story
- By: Jeremy Grimaldi
- Narrated by: Joe Hempel
- Length: 12 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
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Performance
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Story
From the outside looking in, Jennifer Pan seemed like a model daughter living a perfect life. The ideal child, the one her immigrant parents saw, was studying to become a pharmacist at the University of Toronto. But there was a dark, deceptive side to the angelic young woman. In reality, Jennifer spent her days in the arms of her high-school sweetheart, Daniel. In an attempt to lead the life she dreamed of, she would do almost anything. For many years she led this double life. But when her father discovered her web of lies, his ultimatum was severe. And so, too, was her revenge.
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Good Story - Odd Formating
- By CrimsonYell on 01-24-20
By: Jeremy Grimaldi
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A Knock at Midnight
- A Story of Hope, Justice, and Freedom
- By: Brittany K. Barnett
- Narrated by: Karen Chilton
- Length: 13 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Brittany K. Barnett was only a law student when she came across the case that would change her life forever - that of Sharanda Jones, single mother, business owner, and, like Brittany, Black daughter of the rural South. A victim of America’s devastating war on drugs, Sharanda had been torn away from her young daughter and was serving a life sentence without parole - for a first-time drug offense.
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Riveting Listen, Inspiring, Change Your Mind
- By elena on 11-18-20
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The Family Roe
- An American Story
- By: Joshua Prager
- Narrated by: Elisabeth Rodgers
- Length: 18 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Despite her famous pseudonym, no one knows the truth about “Jane Roe”, Norma McCorvey (1947-2017), whose unwanted pregnancy in 1970 opened a great fracture in American life. Journalist Joshua Prager spent years with Norma, discovered her personal papers, a previously unseen trove, and witnessed her final moments. With an explosive revelation at the core of the case, he tells her full story for the first time.
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Just wow.
- By Schmulie on 05-15-22
By: Joshua Prager
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A Death in White Bear Lake
- The True Chronicle of an All-American Town
- By: Barry Siegel
- Narrated by: Charles Constant
- Length: 16 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
In 1962, Jerry Sherwood gave up her newborn son, Dennis, for adoption. Twenty years later, she set out to find him - only to discover he had died before his fourth birthday. Harold and Lois Jurgens, a middle-class, churchgoing couple in picturesque White Bear Lake, Minnesota, had adopted Dennis and five other foster children. To all appearances, they were a normal Midwestern family, but Jerry suspected that something sinister had happened in the Jurgens household. She demanded to know the truth about her son's death.
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Really, really good book.
- By Danette on 12-23-20
By: Barry Siegel
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The Queen
- The Forgotten Life Behind an American Myth
- By: Josh Levin
- Narrated by: January LaVoy
- Length: 12 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
In this critically acclaimed true crime tale of "welfare queen" Linda Taylor, a Slate editor reveals a "wild, only-in-America story" of political manipulation and murder (Attica Locke, Edgar Award-winning author). Part social history, part true-crime investigation, Josh Levin's mesmerizing book, the product of six years of reporting and research, is a fascinating account of American racism, and an exposé of the "welfare queen" myth, one that fueled political debates that reverberate to this day.
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Very compelling story!
- By Marilyn on 06-24-19
By: Josh Levin
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Children Under Fire
- An American Crisis
- By: John Woodrow Cox
- Narrated by: Graham Halstead
- Length: 10 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
In 2017, seven-year-old Ava in South Carolina wrote a letter to Tyshaun, an eight-year-old boy from Washington, DC. She asked him to be her pen pal; Ava thought they could help each other. The kids had a tragic connection - both were traumatized by gun violence. Ava’s best friend had been killed in a campus shooting at her elementary school, and Tyshaun’s father had been shot to death outside of the boy’s elementary school. Ava’s and Tyshaun’s stories are extraordinary, but not unique.
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What about the kids that are left behind?
- By Denise on 04-11-21
By: John Woodrow Cox
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One Day
- The Extraordinary Story of an Ordinary 24 Hours in America
- By: Gene Weingarten
- Narrated by: Johnathan McClain
- Length: 11 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
On New Year’s Day 2013, two-time Pulitzer Prize-winner Gene Weingarten asked three strangers to, literally, pluck a day, month, and year from a hat. That day - chosen completely at random - was Sunday, December 28, 1986, by any conventional measure a most ordinary day. Weingarten spent the next six years proving that there is no such thing. That Sunday between Christmas and New Year’s turned out to be filled with comedy, tragedy, implausible irony, cosmic comeuppances, kindness, cruelty, heroism, cowardice, genius, idiocy, and much more....
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I'm giving this book more credit for its concept
- By J. F. Boyd on 12-24-19
By: Gene Weingarten
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Our Little Secret
- The True Story of a Teenage Killer and the Silence of a Small New England Town
- By: Kevin Flynn, Rebecca Lavoie
- Narrated by: Aven Shore
- Length: 9 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
For 20 years Daniel Paquette's murder in New Hampshire went unsolved. It remained a secret between two high school friends until Eric Windhurst's arrest in 2005. What was revealed was a crime born of adolescent passion between Eric and Daniel's stepdaughter, Melanie - redefining the meaning of loyalty, justice, and revenge.
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A
- By Diana Hart 33 on 04-28-21
By: Kevin Flynn, and others
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American Baby
- A Mother, a Child, and the Shadow History of Adoption
- By: Gabrielle Glaser
- Narrated by: Kathe Mazur, Gabrielle Glaser, Margaret Katz
- Length: 10 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
The adoption business was founded on secrecy and lies. American Baby lays out how a lucrative and exploitative industry removed children from their birth mothers and placed them with hopeful families, fabricating stories about infants' origins and destinations, then closing the door firmly between the parties forever. Adoption agencies and other organizations that purported to help pregnant women struck unethical deals with doctors and researchers for pseudoscientific "assessments," and shamed millions of women into surrendering their children.
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I felt the love of my birth mom...
- By Mary H. on 02-03-21
By: Gabrielle Glaser
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When They Call You a Terrorist
- A Black Lives Matter Memoir
- By: Patrisse Cullors, asha bandele, Angela Davis - foreword
- Narrated by: Angela Davis - foreword, Angela Davis, Patrisse Cullors
- Length: 6 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
When They Call You a Terrorist is the essential audiobook for every conscientious American. From one of the cofounders of the Black Lives Matter movement comes a poetic audiobook memoir and reflection on humanity. Necessary and timely, Patrisse Cullors' story asks us to remember that protest in the interest of the most vulnerable comes from love.
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Everyone should listen!
- By Mary J. Bunker on 01-26-18
By: Patrisse Cullors, and others
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The Meaning of Matthew
- My Son's Murder in Laramie, and a World Transformed
- By: Judy Shepard
- Narrated by: Judy Shepard
- Length: 5 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
The mother of Matthew Shepard shares her story about her son's death and the choice she made to become an international gay rights activist.
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Heart breaking story
- By sherry on 08-10-12
By: Judy Shepard
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Pregnant Girl
- A Story of Teen Motherhood, College, and Creating a Better Future for Young Families
- By: Nicole Lynn Lewis
- Narrated by: Nicky Sunshine
- Length: 7 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
An activist calls for better support of young families so they can thrive and reflects on her experiences as a Black mother and college student fighting for opportunities for herself and her child. Pregnant Girl presents the possibility of a different future for young mothers - one of success and stability - in the midst of the dismal statistics that dominate the national conversation.
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Political
- By Amazon Customer on 01-16-23
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The Girls Who Went Away
- The Hidden History of Women Who Surrendered Children for Adoption in the Decades Before Roe v. Wade
- By: Ann Fessler
- Narrated by: Coleen Marlo
- Length: 12 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
In this deeply moving and myth-shattering work, Ann Fessler brings out into the open for the first time the astonishing untold history of the million and a half women who surrendered children for adoption due to enormous family and social pressure in the decades before Roe v. Wade.
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Sad but True ... and Helpful
- By Kim Kavanagh on 01-05-17
By: Ann Fessler
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A Tangled Web
- A Cyberstalker, a Deadly Obsession, and the Twisting Path to Justice
- By: Leslie Rule
- Narrated by: Tanya Eby
- Length: 11 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
It was a bleak November in 2012 when Cari Lea Farver vanished from Omaha, Nebraska. Cari, 37, was a devoted mother, reliable employee, and loyal friend - not the type to shirk responsibilities, abandon her son, and run off on an adventure while her dying father took his last breaths. Yet, the many texts from her phone indicated she had done just that. While Cari's boyfriend, Dave Kroupa, and her supervisor were bewildered by her abrupt disappearance, they accepted the texts at face value. Her mother, Nancy Raney, however, was alarmed and reported Cari missing.
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Unbelievable and impossible but sadly all true.
- By maggie mae on 05-12-20
By: Leslie Rule
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The Girls
- An All-American Town, a Predatory Doctor, and the Untold Story of the Gymnasts Who Brought Him Down
- By: Abigail Pesta
- Narrated by: Elisabeth Rodgers
- Length: 8 hrs
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
The Girls is a profound exploration of trust, ambition, betrayal, and self-discovery. Award-winning journalist Abigail Pesta unveils this deeply reported narrative at a time when the nation is wrestling with the implications of the MeToo movement. How do the women who grew up with Nassar reconcile the monster in the news with the man they once trusted? In The Girls, we learn that their answers to that wrenching question are as rich, insightful, and varied as the human experience itself.
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Don’t waste a credit
- By Timothy McCarthy on 11-12-19
By: Abigail Pesta
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One late spring evening in 2010, Shannan Gilbert - after running through the oceanfront community of Oak Beach screaming for her life - went missing. No one who had heard of her disappearance thought much about what had happened to the 24-year-old: She was a Craigslist escort who had been fleeing a scene - of what, no one could be sure. The Suffolk County police, too, seemed to have paid little attention - until seven months later, when an unexpected discovery in a bramble alongside a nearby highway turned up four bodies, all evenly spaced, all wrapped in burlap.
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No answers
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- A Novel
- By: Colleen McKeegan
- Narrated by: Jesse Vilinsky
- Length: 11 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
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It’s been fifteen years since Kimmy Devine promised herself she’d never move back to Rocky Cape, the idyllic South Jersey beach town where she grew up. She doesn’t want to relive the crushing heartbreak and scandal that ravaged her world as a teen. Her younger sister Erin shares those feelings, the wounds she caused so many years ago forever binding her and Kimmy. As the sisters celebrate their homecoming at their parents’ yacht club, a handful of familiar faces arrive to dampen the revelry. The next morning, a body is found floating nearby.
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Great
- By lisa on 09-05-24
By: Colleen McKeegan
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Unmasked
- My Life Solving America's Cold Cases
- By: Paul Holes, Robin Gaby Fisher
- Narrated by: Paul Holes
- Length: 8 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
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I order another bourbon, neat. This is the drink that will flip the switch. I don’t even know how I got here, to this place, to this point. Something is happening to me lately. I’m drinking too much. My sheets are soaking wet when I wake up from nightmares of decaying corpses. I order another drink and swig it, trying to forget about the latest case I can’t shake. Crime solving for me is more complex than the challenge of the hunt, or the process of piecing together a scientific puzzle. The thought of good people suffering drives me to the point of obsession.
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I gave it the old college try
- By Hobbes on 05-06-22
By: Paul Holes, and others
What listeners say about We Were Once a Family
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Carole T Emberton
- 05-24-23
A devastating story of families torn apart
Deeply researched and sensitively told. This is investigative journalism at its finest. A must read.
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- B. Patterson
- 08-03-23
Devastating
A really powerful look at the child welfare system and the human cost of splitting up families. I binged the whole book as is it was incredibly compelling and well written
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- Jess Halverson Bowyer
- 04-02-23
Must read for all Americans
The author uses in depth reporting, empathy, and a riveting story to examine the complex cruelties of the systems of racism and control destroying lives through the CPS structure. She does so with grace and transparency, distilling a hard topic to an easy to understand narrative. For those white adults who grew up understanding a much different tale about CPS and the foster system, a much needed explanation that will hopefully spark change. Great reporting and a great work.
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- Ferret Girl
- 03-25-23
A must read
A must read if you want to understand the child welfare system and it’s consequences for birth families and children. Well written and performed. I was deeply moved by the back stories of everyone involved, the births families, the children, and the adoptive mothers.
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- Gisela R. Barry
- 03-17-23
We once were a family
What a tragic tale. The writer has laid open one of the worst child neglect stories of our Government.
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- Nadeah Kalapodis
- 01-11-24
Tragic but important
The story was incredibly sad and eye-opening to how child protective services work. Although we know, systemic racism has been it play, it is rampant in that at target, black families, and takes children from their homes.
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- coffee lover
- 04-06-23
There are more than one side of a story
I found the book interesting and well written. I respect the author for paying attention to the birth families. There is no doubt that they suffered and continued to be mistreated. I would like to add, however, that the matter of a child removal often involves court. The description of how children were removed from their parents in the book comes from the parents, may or may not be how it actually happened. I also felt the author paying less attention to the impact of having parents with substance use and mental illness but blaming so much on poverty. Finally with so much emphasis on racism, which I agree, I wonder if this book could have been narrated by an African American mother. It is a little disappointing that this book could come across as the white people's story when African American person is not included in the book production.
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- Brandon
- 09-16-23
unbiased
I like how the author presented facts surrounding each incident that occurred to get the children to the next phase of their lives. It was presented in such a manner that you are left to determine who was at fault.
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- Rita Dorsey
- 05-17-23
Incredible investigative journalism
Author impeccably investigates and writes about corruption and systemic racism in child removal, CPS, the courts, and foster care system. A must read/listen.
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- Katie C
- 08-02-23
Powerful examination of our failing child welfare system
Starting with the tragic tale of 6 adopted Black children driven off a literal cliff by their adopted parents, the author deftly examines the system that allowed it to happen. Incredible detail and storytelling. 6 stars. Must read.
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