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International Gay & Lesbian Review

The Family Heart: A Memoir of When Our Son Came Out

by Robb Forman Dew
abstract

These blurbs are from the cover of the book.

Eye-opening: A curious but remarkable memoir, a pearly accumulation of sweet memories and bright insights wrapped around a hard pebble of pain. Dew is a mother who has come to understand what every parent must learn about his or adult children: We cannot live their lives for them, we can only seek to find out who they are, and to find a way to make some loving connection with them.
—LOS ANGELES TIMES

Masterful… Moving… A reflective exploration of a mother's struggle with her attitudes toward homosexuality and a family's negotiation of difference.
—KIRKUS REVIEWS

Should be of help to many parents who are equally unprepared for a lesbian daughter or a gay son. Her candor and bravery are admirable.
—LAMBDA BOOK REPORT

Dew's clean, elegant prose traces the denial, disbelief, grief, and rage at the inequities of society she and her liberal, educated husband, Charles, experienced when their elder son told them he was gay… She finds in herself greater awareness, flexibility, compassion, and acceptance, and she builds stronger bonds with her son, husband, other family members, friends, colleagues, and community. Her story is of a coming-out on many levels.
—BOOKLIST

At the heart of this memoir lies a true epiphany: the author's sudden, galvanizing awareness of the suicidal consequences of homophobia. It is a chilling moment, and it is described with a writer's eloquence and a mother's rage. Dew's intense imagination, combined with her ignorance of homosexuality, was as much a hindrance as a help, and it is to her credit that she has recorded the occasionally wacky assumptions and painful readjustments of her own odyssey with such care and humor.
—THE NEW YORKER

Eloquent and absorbing… The true testament of Mrs. Dew and her husband as parents, and the most powerful moments of this inspiring memoir, occur when they “come out” to their community as parents of a gay child. Though Mrs. Dew imparts a lot of self-gained wisdom in this perceptive and beautifully articulated story, in the end she realizes she has something she has always had — a strong loving family and two good sons.
—THE DALLAS MORNING NEWS

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International Gay & Lesbian Review
Los Angeles, CA