Review: Everybody's Son by Thrity Umrigar

 

For such a short book, coming in at less than 400 pages, it surely packs a punch.  The novel starts with Anton, a young black boy, breaking out of an oppressively hot apartment in the projects after his mother has left him to procure drugs and did not return after being drugged, held hostage and prostituted. Anton doesn't know who his white father is, except that he is a doctor.  Anton is placed into foster care with David and Delores Coleman, a prominent white family who lost their biological son in a car accident on their son's prom night. Wile the Colemans are very, very kind and loving to Anton, he definitely misses and yearns for his mother - who he calls "mam." Anton initially feels very out of place in the lily white neighborhood that the Colemans call home and feels that he is the main attraction at the circus when he goes to school. David, a judge, we learn cannot bear Anton returning to his mother when she is finally released from jail so he uses all of his privilege to ensure that this would not happen.  The Colemans eventually adopt Anton and this novel follows Anton through his early professional life.

I really enjoyed this novel. There is so much to unpack here as the novel probes issues related to exploitation and to privilege in the intersection of race, class and gender. Initially, I felt some sympathy to the Colemans, although not as much as I felt towards Anton and his mother.  Losing a child is horrific.  But then, I began to truly despise them and their moral failings. I felt moral outrage at the gross injustice done to Juanita, Anton's mam, by the very people who are supposed to be held to higher standards - David (who is a Judge) and his best friend (who is the prosecutor in charge of Juanita's case). I also was horrified that Anton had no idea that this had happened and was told that his mother had voluntarily relinquished him, when the explicit love she had for him was clear. The messages, throughout the novel, were clear.

That being said, the novel could be heavy handed in parts. While the novel moved quickly, it occasionally felt like I was being punched over and over and over again with the same tropes, which runs the risks that the reader becomes desensitized to what is an important message about our society. I felt that some of the characters became predictable and stereotypical - but perhaps that was the point.  They have to act stereotypically in order for the author to make her point. 

I do think that the book is worth the read for the themes it tries to tackle and raise awareness of, even with its drawbacks and I look forward to reading more of Umrigar's works in the future.