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Best known for his syndicated sexual advice column, "Savage Love," Dan Savage shares his own story in
The Kid, a hilarious account of his efforts--along with his partner--to adopt a child. (Whoops, make that his boyfriend; Savage can't stand the "genderless" P-word: "Straight people and press organs that want to acknowledge gay relationships while at the same time pushing the two-penises stuff as far out of their minds as possible love 'partner.' I hated it.") Savage doesn't give an inch on the sexuality issue; it's hard to imagine that a homophobic reader would even pick up
The Kid, but if it happened, Savage's unapologetic presentation of his life would quickly scare that reader off. Which isn't to say that he paints a rosy picture of homosexual cohabitation: the very first scene finds Dan's boyfriend, Terry, locking himself in the bathroom after a fight over the music on the car stereo. The misadventures continue through each step of the open-adoption process, in which Dan and Terry get to know their baby's birth mother, and the first few weeks of parenthood.
The Kid is a wonderful, charming account of real "family values" that proves love knows no limits.
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From Publishers Weekly
Known for his nationally syndicated sex advice columns (collected in Savage Love) and as a regular contributor to NPR's This American Life, Savage recounts what he and his boyfriend of two years went through to adopt a child. After investigating the possibility of becoming biological parents with lesbian friends, Savage and his partner, Terry, pursued an open adoption through an agency. They met Melissa, a homeless "gutter punk," whom they liked, although they worried that she drank and took drugs recreationally at the beginning of her pregnancy. In the end, though, everything worked out for everyone involved. Savage is best when detailing the emotional ups and downs that came with revealing that he was even considering gay parenting, including his anxiety about the possible disapproval of both gay and straight friends, about the ways his sex life would change and about buying the right "baby things." Employing the blunt tone of his columns, Savage humorously and honestly discusses his sexual practices (including bondage and fantasies involving actor Matt Damon), his ambivalence about being a parent and his rage at his homophobic grandmother. His forthrightness is brave and daring in the face of social opposition to gay parenting. However, though Savage's chatty, mercilessly satiric style is effective in his columns and may be intended here to balance the optimistic underpinnings of his journey into parenthood, in this sustained narrative it wears a bit thin. (Sept.)
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
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