Far From The Tree (you should read it!)

Andrew Solomon, Far From the Tree: Parents, Children, and the Search for Identity

With meandering chapters--part storytelling, part literature review--on dwarfism, deafness, down syndrome, autism, schizophrenia, musical prodigies, transgender, and more, Solomon's book is a long and AMBITIOUS (understatement) look at children who possess some profound difference. Solomon includes hundreds and hundreds of short, journalistic narratives about families and how they cope and love and thrive, or not. Solomon concludes that "difficult love is no less a thing than easy love" but also tells the truth about tragedies. What unites all these sometimes wildly different chapters is the experience of "horizontal identity"--markers that are often not shared between parents and children and thus create a family dynamic of difference. But this isn't just a book about families, it's about how the entire culture wrestles with difference, materially and psychologically and all points between.

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