Exactly how accurate is the I am the Night series to the true story?
By Rachel Roth
Fauna’s search for the truth
In the pilot of I am the Night, Fauna didn’t know she was adopted until discovering her birth certificate, but in reality, Fauna always knew she was adopted.
The name Jimmy Lee gave her, Pat, was a type of insult for her white skin- Patty was slang for white girls- and Fauna always knew her birth name as well as her biological mother’s name. When no one believed she was biracial, she’d carry around her birth certificate as proof.
The relationship between Jimmy Lee and Fauna is drastically toned down for the series. In real life, Jimmy Lee regularly abused her daughter and kicked Fauna out of the house when she was only 12. Fauna lived on the street for years until giving birth to her first daughter, Yvette, at the age of 15, the same age Tamar gave birth to her. This is what became her motivation to finally track Tamar down.
Becoming a mother at the same age as her own mother, gave Fauna the connection she was always looking for. She tracked the Hodel name all the way to Los Angeles where she located a distant relative, who put her in contact with George Hodel, who handed over Tamar’s information. Mother and daughter finally spoke on the phone five years after Fauna began the search.
Tamar is the one who told Fauna she was white, not Corinna Hodel, who is also fictional. Corinna is based on Dorothy Huston Hodel, George’s second wife and the woman who arranged Fauna’s adoption.