Q&A with Andrew Solomon

Bronte Coates talks with Andrew Solomon about unorthodox families, including his own.


Far from the Tree is frequently described as a ‘life-changing’ book, and I’d absolutely agree with this statement; after reading the book I’ve viewed my own relationship with my family differently. Do you feel a sense of responsibility for such a reaction from readers?

I’m of course honoured by the designation of it as a life-changing book, and have been especially moved by letters I’ve received that emphasize that point. My favourites have been a letter that said simply, ‘Reading your book helped me to love my children better’ — and one that came from a nun who maintained that after reading the book, she’d decided to leave her orders and have a family. Of course, changing lives is a responsibility and I am always concerned to be sure I haven’t changed many of them for the worse. The nun made me a trifle anxious; I hope family life is all she imagines. In general, though, the purpose of the book was to alter the discourse around family by demonstrating that what we really get from having children is not a mirror of ourselves but a surprising, new, unimaginable set of relationships. And often enough, having children who aren’t what we had in mind when we set out to have children proves more rewarding than we’d have guessed; people end up grateful for lives they’d have done anything to avoid. It’s a book about difficulty, but also about hope, and my wish for it is that it gives enormous hope to my readers.

The families you’ve interviewed for Far from the Tree come from diverse backgrounds, some of which are quite disadvantaged. How did being in a more privileged position shape the way you approached this work, and others?

The subjects in my book represent the full socio-economical spectrum. I didn’t want to write a book that was about how these circumstances affect the middle class. But my experience with my interview subjects was of great commonalities. We might have different social status, but we shared experiences of having stigmatised identities in one way or another. So I knew from my experience as a gay person what it was like to have people look down at you for your disability or other defining condition. I was dismayed to encounter, over and over again, people whose lower income and education levels prevented them from getting services to which they were entitled — either because they didn’t know enough to ask for what they needed, or because they didn’t have the force to deal with obstructive agencies and government bureaucracies. I wanted to tell the story of that injustice.

Andrew Solomon with members of his own family. Photograph by M. Sharkey.

In a previous interview with the Guardian you described yourself as ‘one of five parents with four children in three states’. Can you explain what you mean by this?

My husband is the biological father of two children with some lesbian friends in Minneapolis. I had a close friend from college who’d gone through a divorce and wanted to have children. And so she and I have a daughter, and mother and daughter live in Texas. And my husband and I have a son who lives with us all the time, of whom I am the biological father and our surrogate for the pregnancy was Laura, the lesbian mother of Oliver and Lucy in Minneapolis. So the shorthand is five parents of four children in three states. And there are people who think that the existence of my family somehow undermines or weakens or damages their family. And there are people who think that families like mine shouldn’t be allowed to exist. And I don’t accept subtractive models of love. Only additive ones. And I believe that in the same way that we need species diversity to ensure that the planet can go on, so we need this diversity of affection and diversity of family in order to strengthen the ecosphere of kindness.

My favourite stories are usually about families, and the intricate worlds they build around themselves – the private jokes and languages, or strange habits that develop – and this was a big part of why I loved Far from the Tree. What is an aspect that forms part of the world your own family has built?

Oh, it would take many pages to describe all our eccentricities. Every night, my husband or I tells a story to our son George. My husband’s stories are all about his childhood growing up in small-town Wisconsin. Mine are about a fantastical world we’ve made up where two children, Lucille and Blue Seal, live in a house at the top of a tree with their teacher, Miss Smudge.

Something else I really love in your work are the ways you talk about the relationship between identity and illness. It reminds me a lot of the superhero narrative, which is a pet love of mine, such as when I consider how different characters from the X-Men comics react to the idea of ‘a cure’. Do you feel this comparison is justified?

I’m afraid I’m not strong on superheroes and never read X-Men. But George is beginning to take an interest in superheroes, so I am probably at the brink of a new education on this front. I just Googled ‘X-Men cure’ and got news of a treatment that makes the mutants into normal human beings, and I suppose that is just what I and the others in my book have looked at. Would we want to be ‘cured’ and to lose the thing that makes us strange and foreign? Most of us would have done so as kids (I’d have loved to be straight when I was fourteen) and most of us wouldn’t do so now (I’d never give up the exact marriage I have). Autistic friends tell the same story. We are mutants of a sort, but most of us have superpowers of some kind, and would be loathe to give them up!

Are you working on a new project now? If yes, can you tell us about it?

I am! I’m writing a new book about the idea that in an era in which women work and men are involved in childcare, our ideas of motherhood and fatherhood are gradually merging into a single idea of parenthood — a shift both reflected in and occasioned by single parents by choice, open adoptions, gay families, expanded foster care, changed ideas about divorce, and all the other new structures of family that are enriching the world around us.

What’s on your current reading list?

I’m half way through Elizabeth Gilbert’s The Signature of All Things, which is masterfully wrought and utterly engrossing, written with insight, wit, and real profundity. I’d recommend it unconditionally.

Cover image for Far from the Tree

Far from the Tree

Andrew Solomon

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