That Kind of Mother

March 12, 2018
Alam’s second novel (following Rich and Pretty), an often incisive chronicle of an unconventional family, opens with the birth of poet Rebecca’s first child, Jacob. In the hospital, the awed and rather intimidated new mother meets a proverbial savior, a pregnant nursing consultant named Priscilla, who becomes Rebecca’s nanny. When Priscilla dies giving birth to her own child and her grown daughter, Cheryl, decides she cannot raise the child herself, the distraught and guilt-ridden Rebecca convinces her husband, Christopher, that they should adopt the child, a boy they name Andrew. Rebecca welcomes Cheryl into the life of her baby brother, but the husbands and parents of both Cheryl, who is black, and Rebecca, who is white, struggle to come to terms with the melding of the two families. Alam skillfully tackles issues of race and parenthood; in one searing scene, after Cheryl’s husband is stopped by the police, Cheryl begs the bemused Rebecca to let them talk with Andrew about the perils faced by black men in America. While Rebecca’s career as a prize-winning poet isn’t convincing, readers will empathize with the herculean effort Rebecca puts into her vocation as a parent. The novel offers a memorable depiction of a mother’s journey as her children grow and her marriage collapses.

Rebecca Stone is the mother of two very different sons. One is her biological child, and the other is an adopted child of her African-American nanny. Vanessa Johansson narrates this story of love, family, and modern society in a voice full of feeling. With warmth and wry humor, she personalizes Rebecca's difficulty in embracing motherhood. Johansson draws out the universal nature of this struggle since we have all been children and many of us parents. Rebecca's life with her two sons becomes a cultural critique of society's uneven treatment of people. A look at both modern motherhood and family, this is an unpredictable story told by an expert narrator. M.R. � AudioFile 2018, Portland, Maine

April 15, 2018

New mother and accomplished young poet Rebecca Stone, who is white, gives birth to Jacob in the 1980s. Married to Christopher, a British diplomat stationed in Washington, DC, she has a life rich with government intrigue and more than a little Princess Diana-watching. When Rebecca bonds with Priscilla Johnson, her breastfeeding coach, who is black, and brings her into the home for more help, the household is thrown into a shocking crisis. Already a mother to Cheryl, fortyish Priscilla is once again pregnant and tragically dies in childbirth. Overwhelmed by grief and the impending arrival of their own child, Cheryl and her husband agree to Rebecca's wish that Priscilla's baby Andrew join the Stone family, first on a temporary basis and then permanently through adoption. VERDICT Alam's deeply sensitive and provocative second novel (after Rich and Pretty) authentically touches on themes front and center in today's discourse--white privilege, the rocky path of good intentions, racial divides, and the profoundly intimate details of motherhood and of accomplished women finding their way in a man's world. [See Prepub Alert, 11/6/17.]--Beth Andersen, formerly with Ann Arbor Dist. Lib., MI

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Starred review from March 15, 2018
This story about a white woman who adopts her black nanny's son burrows deep into issues of race, class, and the nature of family.Rebecca Stone is the attractive wife of a British diplomat, a talented poet, an admirer of Princess Diana (the book is set in the late 1980s and '90s), the sort of person who is equally adept at both attending and hosting parties. She lives in a tastefully decorated house in Washington, D.C.; wears designer clothes; drives a Volvo; cooks delicious, complex meals in her well-appointed kitchen. In short, she is, among other attributes, rich and pretty--which happens to be the title of Alam's well-received 2016 debut novel. With this, his second book, Alam further demonstrates his ability to write remarkably convincingly from a woman's perspective, credibly capturing even the particulars of childbirth and breast-feeding, not to mention the emotional challenges of balancing motherhood and fulfilling work. When we first meet Rebecca, she is about to give birth to a son, Jacob, an event that leads to a connection with a hospital breast-feeding consultant named Priscilla Johnson, who will become Jacob's nanny. Rebecca is white; Priscilla is black. But their relationship is far more nuanced than those bare facts may lead you to expect, and their story plays out in unpredictable ways. When Priscilla dies unexpectedly in childbirth, Rebecca instinctively moves to adopt her newborn son, a decision that will change Rebecca's life, her family, and her view of the world. Here Alam proves he is a writer brave and empathetic enough not only to look at life from the perspective of another gender and era, but also to boldly dive in and explore controversial topics, posing questions about the way we treat one another and the challenges of overcoming preconceptions. Digging through to uncomfortable truths, he emerges squarely on the side of hope.With his second novel, Alam cements his status as that kind of writer: insightful, intrepid, and truly impressive.

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Starred review from March 1, 2018
Write what you know. This is one of the most common directives issued to writers, but Alam (Rich and Pretty, 2016) upends that old model in this quietly brilliant novel about motherhood, families, and race. Alam's protagonist, Rebecca Stone, unlike Alam, a gay man of Indian origin, is a white mother, yet his portrait is quite possibly the best peek at motherhood and its disorienting seesaw effects on a middle-class suburban woman that we have seen in a long while. Stone, the very definition of white privilege, is fumbling her way through motherhood when she makes an irrevocable, life-altering decision: to adopt a newly orphaned black baby. In narrating Rebecca's tale of gradual self-awareness, Alam's unerring yet unobtrusive eye asks uncomfortable questions: Can motherhood ever look beyond race? Can we learn to recognize the terrible blindness of our respective cultural perspectives? Even in seeking inspiration from Princess Diana, Rebecca proves to be an effective everywoman, quietly screaming at the cacophony that accompanies motherhood's thematic repetitions, while trying to do right by her husband and her sons as she navigates the loaded landscape of parenting and race in America. A stunning accomplishment.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2018, American Library Association.)