Perfect for the large number of baby boomers who have delayed starting families and are now running against their biological limits, An Empty Lap recounts the struggle of the author, an award-winning former senior writer for Time, and her husband as they attempt to have a child.
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Book Description
Editorial Reviews
Amazon.com Review
How do you become a parent? In journalist Jill Smolowe's An Empty Lap, the journey to parenthood joins the "coming of age" book as a meaningful description of the passage from one stage of life to another. In her late 30s, Smolowe wanted a baby. Her husband Joe was, at best, ambivalent. An Empty Lap is about physical and emotional journeys: the Smolowes travel through doubts and resistance, fertility treatments, desperation, and depression; from doctor's office to doctor's office, vials of sperm in hand, to adoption agencies; and finally, from New York to China to full parenthood. An Empty Lap is well written and moving, but never sappy. And even though we know the positive outcome from the beginning, the process is both what fascinates and what is important. An Empty Lap is a journey deep into one couple's relationship. That Smolowe shares their innermost processes with us feels like a gift.
Review
... the overstuffed narrative remains unsettling. Among memoirs of the travails of the affluent, the sparest are the best.... An Empty Lap is eminently readable, but the book rarely transcends the focus on personal history. The moral complexity of international adoption is passed over lightly. The marriage remains enigmatic. -- The New York Times Book Review, Peter D. Kramer
Her unromanticized understanding of what it takes for two highly opinionated adults to work through some of couplehood's most stressful challenges is what gives this book its appeal. In her unlabored ability to discuss just about anything--sex, squabbles, the late-30s-and-what's-it-all-about blues of sophisticated '90s women--Smolowe makes compelling general-interest reading out of a special-interest subject. -- Entertainment Weekly
Her unromanticized understanding of what it takes for two highly opinionated adults to work through some of couplehood's most stressful challenges is what gives this book its appeal. In her unlabored ability to discuss just about anything--sex, squabbles, the late-30s-and-what's-it-all-about blues of sophisticated '90s women--Smolowe makes compelling general-interest reading out of a special-interest subject. -- Entertainment Weekly
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More About the Author
Jill Smolowe is author of the memoir An Empty Lap: One Couple's Journey to Parenthood and co-editor of the anthology A Love Like No Other: Stories from Adoptive Parents. Her book collaborations include John F. Kennedy Jr. and Mad Genius. An award-winning journalist, she was a foreign affairs writer for Newsweek and Time, and is currently a Senior Writer at People. Her work has also appeared in the New York Times, the Washington Post Magazine, the Boston Globe, Reader's Digest and Adoptive Families. She and her daughter divide their time between New Jersey and Pennsylvania's Endless Mountains.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
An Exquisitely Powerful Story of Adoption and Parenthood,
By A Customer
This review is from: An EMPTY LAP: One Couple's Journey to Parenthood (Hardcover)
Jill Smolowe's book, "An Empty Lap,' was one of the most powerful books I have read in a decade. I would highly recommend it to anyone who has an interest in learning about the adoption process and the challenges of fertility. It details the author's personal quest to have a child. 'An Empty Lap' is extremely well written and easy to read. The story is both heartwarming and heartbreaking. It recounts the travails of the available medical interventions explored to counter the couples' fertility problems. I personally found this section most informative. When the author and her husband finally began to research the adoption process, some of the roadblocks and setbacks they faced were devastating. I have since met numerous people who faced similar experiences in the adoption process. It is painful to know that there are so many wonderful children needing adoption and that the actual process of adoption can be so arduous. Their personal experiences while adopting a Chinese child were informative, encouraging and a great starting point for anyone interested in exploring the possibilities of adopting abroad. Jill is an award-winning journalist and rarely agrees to do television interviews. When they ran her story in People Magazine, she agreed to do a number of television interviews because the topic was so personal and powerful for her. This book is a treasure and would be a welcomed addition to your own personal library. After reading it, you will want to recommend it to anyone considering adoption. Reader's Digest felt so highly about the book that they featured it worldwide in a range of languages in condensed versions. I think it is worth reading the original book cover to cover. You would not want to miss any detail of this bittersweet story. It will certainly touch you forever. I feel very comfortable giving 'An Empty Lap' a five-star rating.
9 of 12 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
Ugh!,
By A Customer
This review is from: An EMPTY LAP: One Couple's Journey to Parenthood (Hardcover)
I agree with the reviewer who found this couple "loathsome and selfish." I am also struggling with infertility, and hoped to find some words of wisdom in this book. What I got was a picture of a marriage that the husband clearly didn't want to be in and that seemed incredibly dysfunctional. I admire Ms. Smolowe's honesty, but she clearly planned to bring a child into a marriage with an "absentee live-in father." Why? I was also never fully convinced that she really wanted a baby, as opposed to feeling obligated to "have it all." I was happy to see that it all seemed to work out in the end (the "baby-saves-marriage" theme) but I wonder if there isn't more to the story. It was most helpful and inspiring when she stuck to their attempts to make the adoption decisions, but the marriage was so troubling that I questioned the author's sense of responsibility.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Courageous book,
By A Customer
This review is from: An EMPTY LAP: One Couple's Journey to Parenthood (Hardcover)
Anyone dealing with infertility or considering adoption will be well served by reading this book. The author does not sugar coat. She is honest and open, which is as refreshing as it is painful -- and leaves you feeling much less alone. Nor is she afraid to speak about the way these issues threaten to tear up the very bases of a marriage. This is not an easy book to read -- but you come out the other end much wiser about the true nature of the issues.
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