SPAWNING SEASON

A queer scientist considers procreation.

As a young boy, Osmundson dreamt of being pregnant. As an adult, for several reasons, including adoption ethics and financial strain, the dream of being a parent remained just a dream. That is, until a longtime friend and partner began seriously considering Osmundson as the biological father and co-parent for their child. Ultimately, because of their desire to have a child that reflects their own racial background, Osmundson, who is white, does not father their child. In the aftermath of the possibility, however, he spends time considering the possibilities of queer parenthood and family structures. “Queerness, to me then, wasn’t a theory,” he writes. “It was my body, and it was making another body.” Despite pulling from excellent queer theorists, he does little to broaden the conversation of family. He reaches toward empathy and openness, but the arc bends back toward the self. The main thesis of the book comes into focus near the end, when he writes, “so fucking unfair, everyone was having a child but me.” As the book’s title suggests, Osmundson also weaves in an account of salmon and their spawning. He writes with eloquence: “My father and mother knew about salmon, and they passed their knowledge on to me. I always knew that our local fish returned home to mate and die. I always knew, intuitively, the scale of it, having driven with my family all the way to Idaho, napping in the back seat of our beat-up old Volvo, windows down against the high desert heat.” He cites many salmon facts: “Not every spawning adult will make their own progeny. This math predates even our warming planet; a salmon mother makes so many eggs because she knows, evolution knows, that for any to survive, they need to be many.” As fascinating as these details might be, however, they don’t always enrich the overall narrative.

A narrative of queer parenthood that doesn’t quite cohere.