Review: I Looked Forward To Writing This Review
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 12 7, 2013
I looked forward to writing this review. I couldn't wait for the opportunity to suspend all my critical faculties and just wallow in feeling good!This is a well-written book of almost no import. It's the story of a man who's having a bad time - his best girl friend dies in a fire, leaving him the two young children for whom he was the sperm donor. Fatherhood was never anticipated, and certainly wasn't appreciated by his partner of seven years who walks out on him, and turns out, in the end, to be a terrible villain.He hires a male nanny and you won't be in the least surprised to discover that they fall in love and start to build a family together.But the devil (or the angel) is in the details. There are wonderful and charming vignettes of raising the kids, struggling against sleeplessness (his daughter hasn't said her first word yet, her brother is 3), managing a home, falling in love, all while working full-time as a celebrated chef. The fact that the kids are being raised by a gay couple never once becomes an issue. I like that the the fact that they're same-sex parents is a given - it's about time it was dealt with as just another possible family configuration and neither a moral nor political issue.There's not a lot of plot here. But there is a huge amount of heart, and an equal amount of humor. The obstacles are obviously manufactured (the ex does some terrible things to the family), but they are a side issue to the loving, heartfelt, wondrous metamorphosis from four lonely, stressed people into a loving family with unbreakable bonds.So, it's a bit superficial, perhaps, but sometimes you just need to read something lovely to distract you from the strains and stresses of the real world (and the angst of gay fiction!). This book provides that better than any I have read recently.Many years ago, I had the honor of studying, in France, with the legendary Nadia Boulanger. And I will never forget what she said in reply to a student's scathing review of a performance of Bach by pianist, Edmund Fischer:"You might criticize him for playing with too much heart. But I have a lived a long time and there is one thing I have learned - never, ever, condemn someone for having too much heart, just for having too little".And that about sums up my take on this wonderful book. I recommend it most highly!