These plainspoken,
cage-rattling essays, collected by Walker (What Makes a Man), address
how dramatically the traditional nuclear family has changed. Jenny
Block’s “And Then We Were Poly” sets the decidedly unconventional tone
by insisting that her and her husband’s embrace of other sexual
partners allows them a more, joyful, fulfilling commitment to each
other. A gay couple adopts the child of a self-destructive street girl
in Dan Savage’s “DJ’s Homeless Mommy,” then tries to keep the mother in
touch with her son. In “Sharing Madison.” Dawn Friedman, another parent
of an adoptee, writes of her agonizing process of overcoming the guilt
she feels in having taken baby Madison away from her teenage mother.
Antonio Caya, in “Daddy Donoring,” recounts his rational decision to
sire his friend’s child, firmly remaining the donor, not a daddy, so as
not to “muddle the issue.” Children of mixed race force a much-needed
altering of people’s perceptions, as ZZ Packer explores “The Look,”
while Susan McKinney de Ortega’s choice to marry a much younger Mexican
man and make a home in Mexico challenges the American notion of
middle-class values. These fresh, diverse views represent an authentic,
valuable new reality.