Book review: Far from the tree -- Andrew Solomon

I did not tell anyone about my new year resolution. When people asked, I told them that I wanted to lose 10 pounds, play more piano, or read more books. Secretly though, I told myself that 2015 would be a year to withhold judgement. It would be a year to exercise acceptance of matters beyond my comprehension.

It has not been easy. Opinions form easily like fog does on a bathroom window. Deliberate efforts are often needed to keep the window clean. If you asked me a month ago, should parents go for genetic screening knowing there are defective genes in the family, or should parents take their deaf children to lip reading learning sessions so they can communicate with a larger crowd, it would be pretty easy to give out an answer. And I would not even realize the biases coming into it.

Andrew Solomon’s immense 1000 page book: “Far from the tree, Parents, Children, and the Search for Identity” opened my eyes in a way that was never expected. It changed my answer, or thoughts in answering these questions. This is a book about difference, it is about parental journeys of “exceptional” children or children came in unexpected ways. The storm it brought on my value system will linger on for many days to come.

Solomon opens the book by introducing the concept of horizontal identity, a part that comes in “recessive genes, random mutations, prenatal influences or values and preferences that a child does not share with his progenitors.” Unlike vertical identity, a part that children inherits, horizontal identify can come in unexpected forms. Solomon spent 11 years interviewing hundreds of families with children possessing horizontal identities that are completely foreign to their parents. These children are deaf, dwarf, transgender, prodigies, conceived in rape, criminals, or they have down syndrome, schizophrenia or a combination of severe disabilities. This is a group of children that are not “normal” by conventional standards, this is a group of parents that struggle, triumph and harvest the deepest love and intimacy in front of the world’s unexpected cruelties.

The book starts with chapter “son”. A memorial of Solomon’s own childhood. With the beautiful, eloquent writing, it is hard to imagine that Solomon had dyslexia when he was young. His mother helped him overcome the obstacle. When his sexual orientation surfaced as different from the most, she started him on a similar journey, determined to find a fix. They went to doctors and endless therapies. For the entire childhood, Solomon tried to fight it or hide it. As an adult, he went so far as to go through sexual surrogates in hoping he would be able to get intimate with women. The anguish in the self hatred and decline to one's identity is daunting.

Years later, being gay is no longer considered an illness but an identify in many parts of the world. Then, what about the lack of hearing? This book argues the fragile balance between illness and identity. Most deaf people do not consider their lives incomplete. To them, deafness is not an absence, but a presence. Solomon says statistically deaf children born to deaf parents achieve more than deaf children born to hearing parents. The deaf community considers sign language adequate and capable of expressing every shade of an emotion. When hearing parents send their deaf children to lip reading learning sessions, while they could be learning something else, are the parents giving the children a fuller completion of self realization? Or they are just making the children more like themselves? Who are truly benefiting from this process, the children or the parents? In Solomon’s words, “it is a description of how to tolerate what cannot be cured, and an argument that cures are not always appropriate when they are feasible.”

The story of Jason, a boy with down syndrome, will stay with me for a long time. Jason’s parents, Charles and Emily took 10 day old Jason to Mental Retardation Institute to participate an experience of early intervention program on kids with down syndrome. They were asked to provide as much stimulation, especially with the engagement of all his senses. Emily got every kind of fabric possible and made it a blanket for baby Jason to sit on. She hang huge disco lights and super market’s ridiculously sized snowflakes in his room. The room was also painted in bright colors with exaggerated patterns, normal people would get headaches just walking in his room. Music was always on, Charles and Emily talked to Jason non stop. They made Jason play in a pool of jello, brushed his tiny feet with bristles. All possible measures they could think of were used. At 4 month old, Jason responded to Emily’s question for the first time. 4 years later, Jason learned how to read. At age 6, Jason read at grade 4 level and was able to do basic math. Both Emily and Jason became celebrities and the mom was giving inspirational speeches country wide. Things started to change a few years later. People with DS tend to have a sweet gentle nature. Jason loves hugging strangers, not understanding the social awkwardness in it. He is also crippled in observing subtle social cues. He was turned away from camps, soccer games and all the other normal kids activities. He started to stood out and being isolated in school. In the meantime, his intellectual ability staggered and his classmates caught up and passed by. Later as an adult, he had trouble keeping jobs. He learned to assert his position as an independent adult, but it is often used in the wrong context. He is smarter than most people with DS, but also less content with himself than them. Unlike most of them, he is able to acknowledge his inadequacies, and feels sad for what he can’t do. Jason sometimes talks about what he might have done if he didn’t have DS, Emily says, “I have never allowed myself that fantasy, it is too dangerous for me.”

At least Jason is loved. And he knows it. What about the kids conceived in rape? In these situations, half the women choose abortion, some miscarry or give up for adoption. A staggering 8000 rape conceived children are born and kept by the moms each year in US alone. When a child’s very existence reminds you of a horrible trauma,  the detangling of an innocent child and its origin is a constant battle. One mom cannot bear the touch of her daughter, even she loves her immensely. Others walk the fine line between self healing and motherhood. Maternal love does not always triumph here. The horror from genocidal rape is extremely difficult to read. And here I learned the first time the lack of aftermath support to the women. And the infanticide after the rape of Nanking. This bring up my only disappointment in this book, the lack of voice from the children. I fascinate at least some children will prosper on the path of building identity, despite the dark origin of their lives.

In each chapter, Solomon presents sensitively what has been researched and an extensive list of carefully selected families and their stories. Each horizontal identity discussed here has its specific challenges, one thing is common: with the most despair comes the deepest love. I find myself pondering on one question repeatably: is there a standard on what life is worth living? In Jason’s case, a more enlightened life with more sadness or a happier and oblivious one? With the raped women that choose to keep their children, can maternal love produce enough courage for them to fight the demon? In Solomon’s words, parents do not reproduce, they recreate. I think the first step to this recreation is acceptance. Acceptance takes courage, wisdom and resilience. For that, I have greatest respect to all the families here and I applaud Solomon for his compelling book.

Good non fiction books are like scalpel in surgeon's hand, sharp, precise, cold, lays bloody facts in front you. Far from the tree has all that yet remains warm and hopeful. The last chapter of the book is “father”, an echo to the first chapter “son”. As a psychologist, Solomon went on this journey to find answers to his childhood pain, and he ended up being a father himself. The book ends with “sometimes, I had thought the heroic parents in this book were fools, enslaving themselves to a life’s journey with their alien children, trying to breed identity out of misery. I was startled to learn that my research had build me a plank, and that I was ready to join them on their ship.”

I am grateful to have Solomon share this journey, and help me continue my journey of learning acceptance. Differences unite us. In the end, what does it mean to be human? There is no simple answer, but I believe the answer is in the quest itself.