One Big, Happy Family: Introducing the New American Family »

Named by Time magazine as one of the most influential leaders of her generation, Rebecca Walker has received numerous awards and accolades for her writing and activism. In addition to the bestselling memoir Black, White, and Jewish, her books include Baby Love: Choosing Motherhood After a Lifetime of Ambivalence and the anthologies To Be Real: Telling the Truth and Changing the Face of Feminism, a standard text in gender studies courses around the world, and What Makes a Man: 22 Writers Imagine the Future.

An illuminating, entertaining, and provocative immersion in today's American family, with essays from ZZ Packer, Dan Savage, Min Jin Lee, asha bandele, Alisa Valdes-Rodriguez, and others, illustrating the changing realities of domestic life.

Edited by bestselling author Rebecca Walker, this anthology invites us to step into the center of a range of different domestic arrangements and take a good look around. From gay adoption to absentee fathers, from open marriages to green-card marriages, the reality of the American household has altered dramatically over the last three decades. With changing values and expectations, fluid gender roles, and a shifting economy, along with increase in infertility, adoption, and the incidence of mixed-race couples, people across the country are redefining the standard arrangement of family life. In a collection of eighteen honest, personal, and deeply affecting essays from an array of writers, One Big Happy Family offers a fresh look at how contemporary families are adapting to this altering reality.

Each writing from the perspective of his or her own unique domestic arrangements and priorities, the authors of these essays explore topics like transracial adoption, bicultural marriage and children, cohousing, equal parenting, and the creation of virtual families. Dan Savage writes about the unexpected responsibilities of open adoption. Jenny Block tells of the pros and cons of her own open marriage. ZZ Packer explores the ramifications of, and her own self-consciousness about, having a mixed-race child. asha bandele writes of her decision to have a child with a man in prison for life. And Min Jin Lee points to the intimacy shared by a mother and her child's hired caregiver.

All of these pieces smartly discuss the various cultural pressures, issues, and realities for families today, in a manner that is inviting and accessible—sometimes humorous, sometimes moving, sometimes shocking, but always fascinating.

Publishers Weekly

These plainspoken, cage-rattling essays, collected by Walker (What Makes a Man), address how dramatically the traditional nuclear American family has changed. Jenny Block's "And Then We Were Poly" sets the decidedly unconventional tone by insisting that her and her husband's embrace of other sexual partners allows them a more joyful, fulfilling commitment to each other. A gay couple adopts the child of a self-destructive street girl in Dan Savage's "DJ's Homeless Mommy," then tries to keep the mother in touch with her son. In "Sharing Madison," Dawn Friedman, another parent of an adoptee, writes of her agonizing process of overcoming the guilt she feels in having taken baby Madison away from her teenage mother. Antonio Caya, in "Daddy Donoring," recounts his rational decision to sire his friend's child, firmly remaining a donor, not a daddy, so as not to "muddle the issue." Children of mixed race force a much-needed altering of people's perceptions, as ZZ Packer explores in "The Look," while Susan McKinney de Ortega's choice to marry a much younger Mexican man and make a home in Mexico challenges the American notion of middle-class values. These fresh, diverse views represent an authentic, valuable new reality. (Feb.)

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1 And Then We Were Poly Jenny Block Block, Jenny 1

2 Woman Up asha bandele bandele, asha 17

3 The Enemy Within Dan Savage Savage, Dan 29

4 Foreign Relations Suzanne Kamata Kamata, Suzanne 37

5 Counting on Cousins Amy Anderson Anderson, Amy 61

6 The Look Z. Z. Packer Packer, Z. Z. 73

7 Like Family Min Jin Lee Min, Jin Lee 79

8 Daddy Donoring Antonio Caya Caya, Antonio 97

9 Two Red Lines Susan McKinney de Ortega de Ortega, Susan McKinney 108

10 My First Husband Liza Monroy Monroy, Liza 123

11 Home Alone Together Neal Pollack Pollack, Neal 139

12 Love. Money, and the Unmarried Couple Judith Levine Levine, Judith 150

13 Unassisted Sasha Hom Hom, Sasha 165

14 Sharing Madison Dawn Friedman Friedman, Dawn 178

15 Half the Work, All the Fun Marc Vachon Vachon, Marc Amy Vachon Vachon, Amy 190

16 How Homeschooling Made Our Family More of What We Wanted It to Be Paula Penn-Nabrit Penn-Nabrit, Paula 206

17 Till Life Do Us Part Meredith Maran Maran, Meredith 224

18 This Old House Rebecca Barry Barry, Rebecca 239