Far from the Tree: Parents, Children, and the Search for Identity - Softcover

Solomon, Andrew

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0743236726 ISBN 13: 9780743236720

Publisher: Scribner Book Company, 2013

Synopsis

Winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award, a Books for a Better Life Award, and one of The New York Times Book Review's Ten Best Books of 2012, this masterpiece by the National Book Award-winning author of The Noonday Demon features stories of parents who not only learn to deal with their exceptional children, but also find profound meaning in doing so--"a brave, beautiful book that will expand your humanity" (People).

Solomon's startling proposition in Far from the Tree is that being exceptional is at the core of the human condition--that difference is what unites us. He writes about families coping with deafness, dwarfism, Down syndrome, autism, schizophrenia, or multiple severe disabilities; with children who are prodigies, who are conceived in rape, who become criminals, who are transgender. While each of these characteristics is potentially isolating, the experience of difference within families is universal, and Solomon documents triumphs of love over prejudice in every chapter.

All parenting turns on a crucial question: to what extent should parents accept their children for who they are, and to what extent they should help them become their best selves. Drawing on ten years of research and interviews with more than three hundred families, Solomon mines the eloquence of ordinary people facing extreme challenges.

Elegantly reported by a spectacularly original and compassionate thinker, Far from the Tree explores how people who love each other must struggle to accept each other--a theme in every family's life.

About this title

Review

"Deeply moving..."--Lisa Zeidner "The Washington Post "

"A careful, subtle, and surprising book."--Nathan Heller "The New Yorker "

"It's a book everyone should read and there's no one who wouldn't be a more imaginative and understanding parent--or human being--for having done so."--Julie Myerson "The New York Times Book Review "

"Solomon is a storyteller of great intimacy and ease...He approaches each family's story thoughtfully, respectfully...Bringing together their voices, Solomon creates something of enduring warmth and beauty: a quilt, a choir."--Kate Tuttle "The Boston Globe "

"A brave, beautiful book that will expand your humanity."--Anne Leslie "PEOPLE "

"A book of extraordinary ambition...Part journalist, part psychology researcher, part sympathetic listener, Solomon's true talent is a geographic one: he maps the strange terrain of the human struggle that is parenting."--Brook Wilensky-Lanford "The San Francisco Cronicle "

"Monumental...Solomon has an extraordinary gift for finding his way into the relatively hermetic communities that form around conditions...and gaining the confidence of the natives."--Lev Grossman "TIME "

"A behemoth worth every one of its 976 pages."--Amy Boaz "Publishers Weekly "

"[These] stories are entirely unpredictable and offer us the full range of human experience--not only the horror but also the astonishing beauty--and in the end a Shakespearean sense that we are such stuff as dreams are made of."--Judith Newman "More "

"Far-reaching, original, fascinating--Andrew Solomon's investigation of many of the most intense challenges that parenthood can bring compels us all to reexamine how we understand human difference. Perhaps the greatest gift of this monumental book, full of facts and full of feelings, is that it constantly makes one think, and think again."--Philip Gourevitch, author of We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed With Our Families

Book Description

**WINNER OF THE WELLCOME BOOK PRIZE 2014**

Sometimes your child – the most familiar person of all – is radically different from you. The saying goes that the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree. But what happens when it does?

Edition details

• Publisher: Scribner Book Company
• Publication date: 2013
• ISBN 10: 0743236726
• ISBN 13: 9780743236720
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 976