FALLING THROUGH THE NIGHT

A lesbian eager to build the perfect family discovers her past in the process in Schwartz’s debut literary novel.

Audrey Meyerwitz dreams of having a family so fervently that she draws it in her sketchbook: “I flip to an empty page and start drawing a cartoon family: two moms with a giggling baby, a crazy toddler, and a sullen teenager. The moms have doe-eyes, beaming at their kiddos proudly.” Unfortunately, all she has in the physical world are a problematic ex-girlfriend, an injured cat, and a case of generalized anxiety disorder. To help Audrey further along the road to her dream, her supportive best friend, Jessica Gibson, builds her a profile on SheLovesHer, a dating app for lesbians. The Vermont-based Audrey soon finds herself talking to a woman in Canada named Denise. They have chemistry, but Audrey can’t date someone who lives in another country, right? Audrey soon finds herself on the way to getting the family she always wanted—but, of course, it isn’t at all like she imagined it. Her journey toward motherhood entails immigration headaches, sperm donors, and the specter of raising a child with a disability. It also involves learning the truth about her own adoption when she was a baby. Schwartz writes in muscular prose when documenting the highs and lows of dating and pregnancy, as here where Audrey begins her hormone injections: “I keep track of two cycles, and Denise begins administering the hormones designed to help my ovaries go into mass production mode. There is a seventeen-page instruction booklet and a DVD, which I refuse to watch because how complicated could it be? Not only does Denise view it, but she also takes notes.” The book is perhaps overlong and evokes the reportorial quality of a memoir more than the immersiveness of a novel. Even so, Schwartz consistently places Audrey into compellingly difficult situations and plays them out to their emotionally fraught ends.

A sometimes-heartbreaking novel about what it means to be a daughter and a mother.