The realist writer William Dean Howells once wrote to Edith Wharton that “what the American public always wants is a tragedy with a happy ending.” The implication of his remark was that we didn’t have the stomach for Lear mad upon the heath with no redemption in sight. I would offer a different reading. I would say that it is increasingly our character to seek transformation. Early psychoanalytic models are about accepting life’s problems; modern therapies focus on resolving them, eliminating them, or redefining them as something other than problems. Does some artifice creep into this brazen triumphalism? People often affect a happiness they do not feel; people whose neurosis has turned to misery are not only miserable, but also believe that they have failed. But the vital piece of this inclination toward the light is the unshakable belief that catastrophes properly end in resolution, that tragedies are frequently a phase rather than an endgame.
This book seeks the nobility buried in Howells’s disparagement. It is predicated on an even more optimistic notion, which is that the happy endings of tragedies have a dignity beyond the happy endings of comedies, that they not only transcend the mawkishness to which Howells alludes, but also produce a contentment more cherished than one untempered by suffering. Sometimes, people end up thankful for what they mourned. You cannot achieve this state by seeking tragedy, but you can keep yourself open more to sorrow’s richness than to unmediated despair. Tragedies with happy endings may be sentimental tripe, or they may be the true meaning of love. Insofar as I have written a self-help book, it is a how-to manual for receptivity: a description of how to tolerate what cannot be cured, and an argument that cures are not always appropriate even when they are feasible. As the jagged Alps are to the romantic sublime, so this curious joy is to the character of these families—nearly impossible, terrible, and terribly beautiful.
Given how unimaginable my family would have been fifty years ago, I have no choice but to champion progress; change has been good to me, and I am indebted to it. I hope these stories will contribute to the cataract that is honing the rough surface of the world. Until the planet grows smooth, however, love will continue to toughen under siege; the very threats to love strengthen it even as they suffuse it with pain. In the harsh moments of loss that are my topic here, love manacles a tender heart. I felt something brilliant and terrifying for my son as he lay in that Star Trek–like CAT scanner that I had not yet felt for little Blaine, who had not encountered such adversity, or for Oliver and Lucy, who were already themselves when I got to know them. It changed my relationship to them all. Children ensnared me the moment I connected fatherhood with loss, but I am not sure I would have noticed that if I hadn’t been immersed in this research. Encountering so much strange love, I fell into its bewitching patterns and saw how splendor can illuminate even the most abject vulnerabilities. I had witnessed and learned the terrifying joy of unbearable responsibility, recognized how it conquers everything else. 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 built me a plank, and that I was ready to join them on their ship.
Acknowledgments
A book such as this one is a group enterprise, and I am grateful, first and foremost, to the individuals and families who agreed to be interviewed, in many cases speaking about painful experiences at considerable personal cost. Far from the Tree would not exist without them, and neither would the world it documents. I am humbled by their grit, wisdom, generosity, and truthfulness.
The original impetus for this investigation came from an assignment to write about Deaf culture for the New York Times Magazine, and I thank Adam Moss and Jack Rosenthal for proposing that topic to me, and Annette Grant for editing my article. I engaged with the question of prodigies when I was assigned to write about Evgeny Kissin for the New Yorker, and I am grateful to Tina Brown, Henry Finder, and Charles Michener for encouraging me in that work. Leslie Hawke came to my house one night in 2001 with a screening copy of Lisa Hedley’s astonishing film Dwarfs: Not a Fairy Tale; from our conversation that night, this book took shape. In 2007, Adam Moss suggested that I write about the neurodiversity movement for New York, an assignment that turned out to be pivotal in my evolving understanding of the people I was writing about; Emily Nussbaum was my editor for that story. I thank them both.
I was lucky enough to have guides who helped me enter many of the communities I wished to document. Jackie Roth opened up Deaf culture to me starting in 1994 and arranged many interviews I’ve included here. I Gede Marsaja and I Gede Primantara were my guides in Desa Kolok. Betty Adelson was my chief adviser on dwarfs, and I thank her for reading and correcting drafts of that chapter. Suzanne Elliott Armstrong and Betsy Goodwin were helpful as I worked on Down syndrome. Daniel M. Geschwind, Thomas Insel, James D. Watson, and Bruce Stillman assisted me incalculably with the science of autism. Jeffrey Lieberman was my tireless guide to the science of schizophrenia, and David Nathan generously spent time discussing the condition and helping me to meet patients. For their tremendous assistance with my schizophrenia research, I thank Colleen Marie Barrett, Bruce M. Cohen, Cathie Cook, and Scott Rauch at McLean Hospital. Kathleen Seidel educated me on many issues around disability and gave me my training in disability rights. I am particularly grateful to Justin Davidson, Siu Li GoGwilt, Charles Hamlen, Sarah Durie Solomon, and Shirley Young for their unflagging support as I worked on the prodigies chapter, and to Susan Ebersole and Robert Sirota for introducing me to students at the Manhattan School of Music. I am grateful to Jesse Dudley for translating for me Dad’s Aspirations Are That High, by Yuanju Li (2001) (: Ba ba de xin jiu zhe mo gao: gang qin tian cai Lang Lang he ta de fu qin). I thank Dina Temple-Raston for inviting me to Rwanda and helping me secure interviews with rape survivors there, and Janet Benshoof for sharing her insights from a lifetime devoted to reproductive rights. In connection with the crime chapter, I thank the inspirational Stephen DiMenna, who encouraged me to accompany him to the Hennepin County Home School, where Tom Bezek, Thelma Fricke, Shelley Whelan, and Terry Wise kindly facilitated my interviews with residents and their families. Alex Busansky and Jennifer Trone, of the Commission on Safety and Abuse in America’s Prisons, provided terrific background information for that chapter. My work on the trans community relied on the help and support of Matt Foreman, Lisa Mottet, Kim Pearson and her TYFA team, and Rachel Pepper.
I was fortunate to have a sterling research team who obtained and organized vast bodies of information. Over a decade, smart and stalwart Ian Beilin, witty and compelling Stephen Bitterolf, rigorous and loyal Susan Ciampa, conscientious Jonah Engle, free-thinking Edric Mesmer, scrupulous and astute Kari Milchman, gracious and splendid Deborah Pursch, courageous Jacob Shamberg, and brilliantly imaginative Rachel Trocchio variously brought knowledge, coherence, and discernment to my research. Pat Towers edited a sample chapter. I am very grateful to Susan Kittenplan for her excellent edit of the manuscript when it was at its most cumbersome. I thank Eugene Corey for transcribing the earlier interviews, and Sandra Arroyo, Sonia Houmis, Kathleen Vach, and the rest of the team at TruTranscripts for working on the later ones.
I became something of a residency junky while working on this book. I had one stay at the Rockefeller Foundation Bellagio Center, one at the Ucross Foundation, two at the MacDowell Colony, and four at Yaddo. The serenity these institutions afforded me was critical to the book. I would like particularly to thank Pilar Palacia and Darren Walker at the Rockefeller Foundation; Sharon Dynak and Ruthie Salvatore at Ucross; Michelle Aldredge, Nancy Devine, David Macy, Brendan Tapley, and Cheryl Young at MacDowell; and Cathy Clarke, Elaina Richardson, and Candace Wait at Yaddo.
I remain deeply indebted as always to my wise and loyal agent and friend, Andrew Wylie, who has championed my work now for almost a quarter century and has helped me to become the writer I am. I am grateful also to his able deputies, especially Sarah Chalfant, Alexandra Leve
nberg, and Jeffrey Posternak. I pay tribute to my beloved editor at Scribner, Nan Graham, who reads with a valiant heart and a kind pencil; her signal mix of empathy, enthusiasm, patience, and insight shaped this book from the time when I was only imagining it to the time when I finally completed it. I thank, also, at Scribner Brian Belfiglio, Steve Boldt, Rex Bonomelli, Daniel Burgess, Roz Lippel, Kate Lloyd, Susan Moldow, Greg Mortimer, Carolyn Reidy, Kathleen Rizzo, Kara Watson, and Paul Whitlatch. At Chatto & Windus, I thank Alison Samuel, who bought the book, and Clara Farmer, who saw it through production. I am grateful to Andrew Essex, Ben Freda, Jonathan Hills, Trinity Ray, Eric Rayman, Andres Saavedra, and Eric Schwinn for their help with other aspects of publication.
I thank Cheryl Henson and Ed Finn for giving me the jacket image, and Adam Fuss for creating it; I thank Annie Leibovitz for creating and giving me my author photo.
Every book I’ve written has been corrected by Katherine Keenum, my freshman writing tutor. Her devotion is profoundly heartening, and her close reading, invaluable.
Kathleen Seidel came on board to organize my bibliography, compile citations, and check facts; she took it upon herself to question prejudices related to identity, disability, medicine, and the law. She was a brilliant diaskeuast, and this would have been an entirely different book without her meticulous intelligence, bracing precision, passion for accuracy, and sense of justice.
Alice Truax wrestled multiple drafts of this book to the ground. Her understanding of my purpose was so profound that I felt as though she had climbed inside my mind to make repairs. My method is associative; hers, logical. With infinite patience and skill, she chipped away at great blocks of chaos to reveal the coherence trapped inside them.
Many people helped keep my life running while I was writing this book, and I’d like to thank Sergio Avila, Lorilynn Bauer, Juan and Amalia Fernandez, Ildikó Fülöp, Judy Gutow, Christina Harper, Brenda Hernández-Reynoso, Marsha Johnson, Celso, Miguela, and Olga Mancol, Tatiana Martushev, Heather Nedwell, Jacek Niewinski, Mindy Pollack, Kylee Sallak, Eduardo and Elfi de los Santos, Marie Talentowski, Ester Tolete, Danusia Trevino, and Bechir Zouay.
It is impossible to acknowledge everyone who participated in this work; almost daily, someone said something that helped me understand more clearly my underlying topics of identity and love. Among the glorious people who made helpful introductions or discussed ideas that are central to the book or read and commented on sections of it are Cordelia Anderson, Laura Anderson, Anne Applebaum, Lucy Armstrong, Dorothy Arnsten, Jack Barchas, Nesli Basgoz, Frank Bayley, Cris Beam, Bill and Bunny Beekman, Meica and Miguel de Beistegui, Erika Belsey and Alexi Worth, Mary Bisbee-Beek, Richard Bradley, Susan Brody, Hugo Burnand, Elizabeth Burns, Elizabeth and Blake Cabot, Mario and Ariadne Calvo-Platero, S. Talcott Camp, Thomas Caplan, Christian Caryl, Amy Fine Collins, Cathryn Collins, Robert Couturier, Dana B. Cowin and Barclay Palmer, Rebecca Culley and Peter K. Lee, Mary D’Alton, Meri Nana-Ama Danquah, Cecile David-Weill, Justin Davidson and Ariella Budick, Nick Davis and Jane Mendelsohn, Roland Davis and Margot Norris, Miraj Desai, Freddy Eberstadt, Nenna Eberstadt and Alistair Bruton, Nicholas Rollo David Evans, Melissa Feldman, Lorraine Ferguson, Susannah Fiennes, Adam and Olivia Flatto, Bill Foreman and Reg Barton, Cornelia Foss, Richard A. Friedman and Bob Hughes, Richard C. Friedman, Fran Gallacher, Arlyn Gardner, Rhonda Garelick, Kathleen Gerard, Bernard Gersten and Cora Cahan, Icy Gordon, Ann Gottleib, Philip Gourevich and Larissa MacFarquhar, Geordie and Kathryn Greig, Guo Fang, Melanie and Martin Hall, Han Feng, Amy Harmon, John Hart, Ashton Hawkins and Johnnie Moore, David Hecht, Cheryl Henson and Ed Finn, David Herskovits and Jennifer Egan, Gillie Holme and Camille Massey, Richard Hubbard, Ana Joanes, Lisa Jonas, Maira Kalman, William Kentridge and Anne Stanwix, Terry Kirk, Larry Kramer, Søren Krogh, Mary Krueger and Andreas Saavedra, Roger and Neroli Lacey, Jhumpa Lahiri and Alberto Vourvoulias-Bush, Katherine Lanpher, Paul LeClerc, Michael Lee and Ashutosh Khandekar, Justin Leites, Jeffrey and Rosemarie Lieberman, Jennie Livingston, Betsy de Lotbinière, Kane Loukas and Christina Rieck, Ivana Lowell and Howard Blum, Sue Macartney-Snape, John MacPhee, Jamie Marks, Mary E. Marks, Cleopatra Mathis, Tey Meadow, James Meyer, Juliet Mitchell, Isaac Mizrahi, R. Clayton Mulford, Freda and Christian Murck, John and Nancy Novogrod, Rusty O’Kelley III and John Haskins, Ann Olson, Beatrix Ost and Ludwig Kuttner, Mary Alice Palmer, Harriet Paterson and Rick Cockett, Julie Peters, Alice Playten, Francine du Plessix Gray, Charles and Barbara Prideaux, Dièry Prudent and Mariza Scotch, Deborah and David Pursch, Emily K. Rafferty, Kim Reed and Claire Jones, Maggie Robbins, Paul and Susannah Robinson, Marion Lignana Rosenberg, Robert Rosenkranz and Alexandra K. Munroe, Steven Rosoff and Tanis Allen, Ira Sachs, Eric Saltzman, Phillip and Donna Satow, Christina Schmidt, Lisa Schmitz, John Schneeman, Jill Schuker, Alex Shand, Julie Sheehan, Nicola Shulman, Polly Shulman, Michael Silverman, Dee Smith, Doug Smith, Gordon Smith, Calvin, Emmett, and Abigail Solomon, David and Sarah Long Solomon, Cindy Spiegel, Moonhawk River Stone, Kerry J. Sulkowicz and Sandra Leong, Ezra Susser, Claudia Swan, Dean Swanson, András Szántó and Alanna Stang, Dina Temple-Raston, Phyllis Toohey, Tara Tooke, Carll Tucker and Jane Bryant Quinn, Susan Wadsworth, Kathryn Walker, Jim and Liz Watson, Caroline Weber, Helen Whitney, Susan Willard, Hope and Grant Winthrop, Jaime Wolf, Micky Wolfson, Doug Wright and Dave Clement, and Larisa Zvezdochetova.
I thank Laura Scher and Tammy Ward for cheering me on as I wrote and for bringing so much joy into my life.
I am forever indebted to Blaine Smith for her exquisite sympathy, generosity, and wisdom; I am grateful to her also for her insights on this book’s design.
My stepmother, Sarah Durie Solomon, talked through Far from the Tree with me year in and year out, providing copious insights and encouragement. Additionally, she urged me to stay with my father and her for long periods when I needed to write. The time we all had together was magical, and this book would not exist without it.
My father, Howard Solomon, my most loyal reader, pored over a stupefying number of early fragments and later versions of this book. We talked about every interview and idea, and he never wavered in his conviction that the undertaking would succeed. His lifelong devotion was my first experience of the kind of unstinting parenthood I’ve chronicled here.
I am grateful to Oliver Scher, Lucy Scher, Blaine Solomon, and George Solomon for their patience when my work kept me from fun and games. This book is a tribute to them, but it required their forbearance.
Finally, I thank my husband, John Habich Solomon, who lived with me when I was working and lived without me when I was working. His editing of the manuscript into precision was a great boon; his editing of my life into happiness is the greatest boon I’ve ever known.
About the Author
© ANNIE LEIBOVITZ
Andrew Solomon’s last book, The Noonday Demon: An Atlas of Depression (Scribner, 2001), won the 2001 National Book Award for Nonfiction, was a finalist for the 2002 Pulitzer Prize, and was included in the Times of London’s list of one hundred best books of the decade. A New York Times bestseller in both hardcover and paperback editions, The Noonday Demon has also been a bestseller in seven foreign countries, and has been published in twenty-four languages. It was named a Notable Book by both the New York Times and the American Library Association, and received the Books for a Better Life Award from the National Multiple Sclerosis Society, the 2002 Ken Book Award from the National Alliance on Mental Illness of New York City, Mind Book of the Year, the Lambda Literary Award for Autobiography/Memoir, and Quality Paperback Book Club’s New Visions Award. Following publication of The Noonday Demon, Solomon was honored with the Dr. Albert J. Solnit Memorial Award from Fellowship Place, the Voice of Mental Health Award from the Jed Foundation and the National Mental Health Association (now Mental Health America), the PRISM Award from the National Depressive and Manic-Depressive Association, the Erasing the Stigma Leadership Award from Didi Hirsch Mental Health Services, the Charles T. Rubey L.O.S.S. Award from the Karla Smith Foundation, and the Silva
no Arieti Award from the William Alanson White Institute.
A native New Yorker, Andrew Solomon attended the Horace Mann School, graduating cum laude in 1981. He received a bachelor of arts degree in English from Yale University in 1985, graduating magna cum laude, and later earned a master’s degree in English at Jesus College, Cambridge. While at Cambridge, he received the top first-class degree in English in his year, the only foreign student ever to be so honored, as well as the University writing prize. He is currently pursuing a PhD in psychology at Cambridge University.
In 1988, Solomon began his study of Russian artists, which culminated with the publication of The Irony Tower: Soviet Artists in a Time of Glasnost (Knopf, 1991). He was asked in 1993 to consult with members of the National Security Council on Russian affairs. His first novel, A Stone Boat (Faber, 1994), the story of a man’s shifting identity as he watches his mother battle cancer, was a national bestseller and runner-up for the Los Angeles Times First Fiction prize; it has since been published in five languages.
From 1993 to 2001, Solomon was a contributing writer for the New York Times Magazine, writing on a wide range of subjects; he has also written periodically for the New Yorker. Such journalism has spanned many topics, including depression, Soviet artists, the cultural rebirth of Afghanistan, and Libyan politics. He has authored essays for many anthologies and books of criticism, and his work has been featured on National Public Radio’s Moth Radio Hour.
Solomon is an activist and philanthropist in LGBT rights, mental health, education, and the arts. His articles on gay marriage have appeared in the New Yorker, Newsweek, the Advocate, and Anderson Cooper 360 °.
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