Far From the Tree; Parents, Children and the Search for Identity

New York: Scribner, 2012. First Scribner Hardcover Edition [stated]. Sixth printing [stated]. Hardcover. Very good/Very good. Annie Liebowitz (Author photograph). ix, [3], 962, [2] pages. Notes. Bibliography. Index. Signed by the author on the title page. DJ has minor wear and soiling. DJ states National Book Critics Circle Award Winner, and 10 Best Books New York Times Book Review 2012. This is a very heavy book which if sent outside of the United States would require an additional shipping payment. Contents include Son; Deaf; Dwarfs; Down Syndrome; Autism; Schizophrenia; Disability; Prodigies; Rape, Crime; Transgender; and Father. Andrew Solomon (born October 30, 1963) is a writer on politics, culture and psychology, who lives in New York City and London. He has written for The New York Times, The New Yorker, Artforum, Travel and Leisure, and other publications on a range of subjects, including depression, Soviet artists, the cultural rebirth of Afghanistan, Libyan politics, and Deaf politics. Solomon's book The Noonday Demon: An Atlas of Depression won the 2001 National Book Award, was a finalist for the 2002 Pulitzer Prize, and was included in The Times list of one hundred best books of the decade. Honors awarded to Far from the Tree: Parents, Children, and the Search for Identity include the 2012 National Book Critics Circle Award, the Media for a Just Society Award of the National Council on Crime and Delinquency, the Anisfield-Wolf Book Award, the Dayton Literary Peace Prize, the J. Anthony Lukas Book Prize, and the Wellcome Book Prize.

Solomon is a professor of clinical psychology at Columbia University Medical Center,[17] a lecturer at Yale School of Medicine,[18] and a past President of PEN American Center. From the National Book Award-winning author of the brave...deeply humane...open-minded, critically informed, and poetic The Noonday Demon: An Atlas of Depression, comes a book about the consequences of extreme personal and cultural differences between parents and children. A monumental new work, a decade in the writing, about family. In Far from the Tree, Andrew Solomon tells the stories of parents who not only learn to deal with their exceptional children but also find profound meaning in doing so. Solomon's startling proposition is that diversity is what unites us all. He writes about families coping with deafness, dwarfism, Down syndrome, autism, schizophrenia, 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, as are the triumphs of love Solomon documents in every chapter. The section on crime includes interviews and subsequent communications with the Klebolds, the parents of one of the Columbine shooters. All parenting turns on a crucial question: to what extent parents should accept their children for who they are, and to what extent they should help them become their best selves. Drawing on forty thousand pages of interview transcripts with more than three hundred families, Solomon mines the eloquence of ordinary people facing extreme challenges. Whether considering prenatal screening for genetic disorders, cochlear implants for the deaf, or gender reassignment surgery for transgender people, Solomon narrates a universal struggle toward compassion and innumerable triumphs of love. Many families grow closer through caring for a challenging child; most discover supportive communities of others similarly affected; some are inspired to become advocates and activists, celebrating the very conditions they once feared. Woven into their courageous and affirming stories is Solomon's journey to accepting his own identity, which culminated in his midlife decision, influenced by this research, to become a parent. Elegantly reported by a spectacularly original thinker, Far from the Tree explores themes of generosity, acceptance, and tolerance—all rooted in the insight that love can transcend every prejudice. This crucial and revelatory book expands our definition of what it is to be human.