Story Behind The Story-The Secret Adoption: A Family Memoir

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A new tell-all memoir from JIA Publishing discloses the roles television star Michael Landon, actress Melissa Gilbert, and several other celebrities played in a closed adoption orchestrated by infamous former LA Clippers owner Donald Sterling and Addams Family theme-song composer Vic Mizzy in the fall of 1976. According to a review by Kirkus, "The Secret Adoption: A Family Memoir" poignantly recounts the elaborate measures taken by an eccentric couple to conceal the child's origins after the death of their eldest son, on whom Landon modeled the character Albert Ingalls in "Little House on the Prairie."

Gilbert, herself an adoptee, praised the story on her Instagram, saying, "It's about survival. It's about coming to terms with the truth of who we are at the core of our beings. It's about forgiveness—mostly it's just about love and trying to be a good human. You simply must read this book."

Penned by the adoptee who uncovered the secret as an adult, the whimsical story features irreverent run-ins with notable personalities such as Frank Sinatra, Ozzy Osbourne, former Governor of California, Jerry Brown, Earvin "Magic" Johnson, and Al Pacino, whom the author, Rafael Moscatel, nearly killed in an intersection while driving through Beverly Hills. In another intriguing passage, the author's father recalls encountering Nicole Brown, ex-wife of notorious O.J. Simpson, on the night of her murder, a detail described as immaterial to his inquiring son. The anecdote underscores the author's recurring theme throughout the book that his "family knew how to keep secrets." Throughout the explosive memoir, untimely deaths of Moscatel's young friends to addiction, including Sterling's own son and comedian Mort Sahl's, are retold with painful reflections on parenting and insights into childhood trauma.