A big-hearted account of one family’s trans story.
Brookes describes mothering young twins, one cis, one trans, in this debut memoir.
The author, a television journalist-turned-filmmaker, author, and activist, was thrilled when she learned she was pregnant with twin boys. Her complicated relationship with her own mentally ill mother had convinced her that girls would be way more trouble. Boys would be easy—or so she thought. Their individual personalities were apparent right from the beginning: “Jacob seemed soft and chill,” remembers Brookes. “Gideon looked like he was ready to battle the world. In retrospect, he probably was.” When, at the age of 8, Gideon informed Brookes and her husband, Mike, that he thought he might be “transister,” the author wasn’t surprised. Gideon had been gender non-conforming his entire life, playing with Barbies and requesting spa-themed birthday parties. Even before this confession, Brookes had attended meetings of a support group for the parents of LGBTQ children. She was fully prepared to be the best mother she could be for her daughter, who soon chose the name Gabriella, and resolved to ensure that she had as healthy and happy a childhood as possible. As the family moved into uncharted territory, however, growing pains proved unavoidable—particularly when it became apparent that the family member least willing to accept Gabriella’s gender was her twin brother, Jacob. Brookes is a skilled storyteller, fleshing out her family’s dynamic with the detailed prose of a novelist. Here the twins draw self-portraits on their bedroom wall: “Whereas Jacob had added a football to his portrait, Gideon had transformed his body entirely. Gone were his legs, and in their place was a huge green mermaid tail, with elaborate fins drawn in. Toward the top of the portrait, he had added a wavy mane of blond hair that offset his bright blue eyes.” There’s something universal in the author’s tireless attempts to do things right: she handles Gabriella’s coming out with the same maternal determination exhibited during earlier attempts to diagnose the children’s learning disorders and get them into the best day school. People from families of all stripes are bound to see something of themselves in this tale.
A big-hearted account of one family’s trans story.Pub Date: Aug. 8, 2023
ISBN: 9781647425210
Page Count: 264
Publisher: She Writes Press
Review Posted Online: July 21, 2023
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Some of Avant’s mantras are overstated, but her book is magnanimous, inspiring, and relentlessly optimistic.
Memories and life lessons inspired by the author’s mother, who was murdered in 2021.
“Neither my mother nor I knew that her last text to me would be the words ‘Think you’ll be happy,’ ” Avant writes, "but it is fitting that she left me with a mantra for resiliency.” The author, a filmmaker and former U.S. Ambassador to the Bahamas, begins her first book on the night she learned her mother, Jacqueline Avant, had been fatally shot during a home invasion. “One of my first thoughts,” she writes, “was, ‘Oh God, please don’t let me hate this man. Give me the strength not to hate him.’ ” Daughter of Clarence Avant, known as the “Black Godfather” due to his work as a pioneering music executive, the author describes growing up “in a house that had a revolving door of famous people,” from Ella Fitzgerald to Muhammad Ali. “I don’t take for granted anything I have achieved in my life as a Black American woman,” writes Avant. “And I recognize my unique upbringing…..I was taught to honor our past and pay forward our fruits.” The book, which is occasionally repetitive, includes tributes to her mother from figures like Oprah Winfrey and Bill Clinton, but the narrative core is the author’s direct, faith-based, unwaveringly positive messages to readers—e.g., “I don’t want to carry the sadness and anger I have toward the man who did this to my mother…so I’m worshiping God amid the worst storm imaginable”; "Success and feeling good are contagious. I’m all about positive contagious vibrations!” Avant frequently quotes Bible verses, and the bulk of the text reflects the spirit of her daily prayer “that everything is in divine order.” Imploring readers to practice proactive behavior, she writes, “We have to always find the blessing, to be the blessing.”
Some of Avant’s mantras are overstated, but her book is magnanimous, inspiring, and relentlessly optimistic.Pub Date: Oct. 17, 2023
ISBN: 9780063304413
Page Count: 288
Publisher: HarperOne
Review Posted Online: Aug. 17, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2023
An intriguing but uneven family memoir and travelogue.
An author’s trip to Venice takes a distinctly Borgesian turn.
In November 2020, soccer club Venizia F.C. offered Nigerian American author Madu a writing residency as part of its plan “to turn the team into a global entity of fashion, culture, and sports.” Flying to Venice for the fellowship, he felt guilty about leaving his immigrant parents, who were shocked to learn upon moving to the U.S. years earlier that their Nigerian teaching certifications were invalid, forcing his father to work as a stocking clerk at Rite Aid to support the family. Madu’s experiences in Venice are incidental to what is primarily a story about his family, especially his strained relationship with his father, who was disappointed with many of his son’s choices. Unfortunately, the author’s seeming disinterest in Venice renders much of the narrative colorless. He says the trip across the Ponte della Libertà bridge was “magical,” but nothing he describes—the “endless water on both sides,” the nearby seagulls—is particularly remarkable. Little in the text conveys a sense of place or the unique character of his surroundings. Madu is at his best when he focuses on family dynamics and his observations that, in the largely deserted city, “I was one of the few Black people around.” He cites Borges, giving special note to the author’s “The House of Asterion,” in which the minotaur “explains his situation as a creature and as a creature within the labyrinth” of multiple mirrors. This notion leads to the Borgesian turn in the book’s second half, when, in an extended sequence, Madu imagines himself transformed into a minotaur, with “the head of a bull” and his body “larger, thicker, powerful but also cumbersome.” It’s an engaging passage, although stylistically out of keeping with much of what has come before.
An intriguing but uneven family memoir and travelogue.Pub Date: April 2, 2024
ISBN: 9781953368669
Page Count: 144
Publisher: Belt Publishing
Review Posted Online: Nov. 17, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2023
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