Unknown Bodies

Janine Veto has worked as an arts administrator and development director in Chicago, New York and Madison, Wisconsin. Her Chicago career encompassed public television and the Chicago Council on Fine Arts where she created their first literature program. During 25 years in New York she served as Development Director Poets & Writers, Inc., Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater and the Joffrey Ballet and as consultant to Lincoln Center Inc., the School of American Ballet, National Public Radio an many others. Her novel Iris was published by Alyson Publications.

The dramatic story of one woman's determined surprising search for her birth parents and commitment to creating her own family
Janine Veto's "Unknown Bodies: Mothers Daughters and Adoption" is a brutally and beautifully honest story that begins on a Villa Park, Illinois, playground when her playmate calls her "bastard." Until then she thought being adopted was happily special. Her life had been privileged, secure and typically 1950s American: Dad, mom, brother, church on Sunday, lakeside summers in northern Wisconsin. Suddenly Veto felt she was "misplaced." The need to find her so-called "real parents" grew. It was a need that would take decades as well as drive, cunning, a little thievery and a lot of spunk. It also was a need fueled by alcohol, sex and disillusion.
Set in the arts and philanthropy worlds of Chicago and New York as well as Iowa farm country, a Denver sports bars and a Midwestern university town, it is memoir of a Boomer in search of her identity in the rapidly changing landscape of what it means to be adopted in America.
Ultimately, the message of "Unknown Bodies" is love; the unconditional love of Veto's adoptive parents, accepting and forgiving love for her broken "real parents", and the bonding love between Veto and her own adopted daughter.