A new trend is sweeping the United States: following decades of debate about genetic engineering, individuals have begun suing their family members over inherited genetic diseases. Birthday Suits follows the Steinman family as John Steinman attempts suicide, forcing his parents to assess their responsibility for his mental illness. As an adult struggling to find a sense of normalcy, John must confront the repercussions of the new genetics legislation on his wife’s career as OB-GYN and their desire to have children of their own. His relations with his family are strained even further when he and his wife are denied a parenting license, a document that would legally enable them to have children and protect them from genetic lawsuits. Elsewhere in the novel, John’s parents prove unable to recover their marriage after his diagnosis, and his grandfather Theodore faces his own genetic legacy after getting sued for his great-grandson’s dyslexia.
A restrained family drama, Birthday Suits explores all of the secrets families hope to keep and the ambivalent challenges of parenting, while demonstrating the disastrous outcomes of exerting too much control.
