SOURCE: "Sins of Mothers … and Fathers," in New Statesman & Society, September 7, 1990, p. 44.

[In the excerpt below, Milne reviews The Broken Cord and notes that Dorris "sees drinking as pre-natal child abuse."]

When Michael Dorris adopted an enchanting three-year-old Sioux child, Adam, he knew the boy's mother had died of alcohol poisoning. He didn't know how that would blight his rapturous single parenthood.

Adam started having unexplained and frightening seizures. At five, he was still not toilet-trained; he could not count or tell colours apart. His frantic father harried hundreds of professionals and dared them to tell him Adam's backwardness was more than temporary. "To judge him lacking in innate ability, I darkly hinted, implied poor teaching, racism or a defeatist attitude."

After months of painful research, Dorris established that Adam was suffering from Foetal Alcohol Syndrome (FAS), caused by his mother's heavy drinking during pregnancy. This discovery prompted...