One Big Happy Family: 18 Writers Talk About Polyamory, Open Adoption, Mixed Marriage, Househusbandry, Single Motherhood, and Other Realities of Truly Modern Love

Edited and with introduction by Rebecca Walker

Riverhead Books/Penguin Group

2009

Ah, the personal essay.

Other than the tortured-artist memoir, is there anything like it to make you feel so completely judgy and sure of your own righteousness? When you’re feeling a little low, an anthology of personal essays is like Christmas and your birthday at the same time, because no matter how unconventional you are and how deeply disturbing your own upbringing, there’s nothing like looking at the inner workings of someone else’s life to make you feel better.

Wait, the first essay’s by a woman touting the strength of her open marriage (she has a girlfriend, but her husband doesn’t have an outside love)? Jackpot! You’ll write down her name (Jenny Block) because you’ll want to see the follow-up essay in a couple of years wherein she talks about her divorce.

asha bandele writes about entering into a relationship with (this is also the subject of her memoir, The Prisoner’s Wife) and having a kid with a guy who is serving a life sentence? Judge, judge, judge.

There’s an essay by Alternadad hipster tool Neal Pollack about his relationship with his wife and kid? Awesome! That guy never fails to make people want to smack him.

There are a couple of other head-scratchers in here by completely unsympathetic writers (I see you, Antonio Caya), but One Big Happy Family mostly comprises insightful essays about the nature of family.

Dan Savage, who lately seems to have decided that blacks are responsible for the failure of gay marriage initiatives, contributes a thoughtful piece about his family’s relationship with his son’s birthmother. Together with his adoption memoir, The Kid, it’s a must-read for anyone thinking about domestic and/or open adoption.

Marc and Amy Vachon should give lessons on their intimidatingly efficient and egalitarian childrearing techniques. ZZ Packer (are we ever going to get that full-length novel, missy?) is at first discomfited by, and later embraces, how people respond to her biracial son, who looks different than she does. Suzanne Kamata considers her complicated relationship with her mother-in-law.

Susan McKinney de Ortega finds familial happiness in another country with a younger man. And in a beautiful piece that at first smacks of hippy-dippyness but is truly a meditation on the purity and hopefulness of childbirth, Sasha Hom has babies at home.

Families are messy and irritating and troubling. They’re also beautiful and necessary and give us strength.

Final grade: B+