The Kid - by Dan Savage (Paperback)

About the Book

The syndicated sex advice columnist of "Savage Love" tells a no-holds-barred story of an ordinary American couple who want to have a baby, except that in this case, the couple happens to be Savage and his boyfriend.

Book Synopsis

Dan Savage's nationally syndicated sex advice column, "Savage Love," enrages and excites more than four million people each week. In The Kid, Savage tells a no-holds-barred, high-energy story of an ordinary American couple who wants to have a baby. Except that in this case the couple happens to be Dan and his boyfriend. That fact, in the face of a society enormously uneasy with gay adoption, makes for an edgy, entertaining, and illuminating read. When Dan and his boyfriend are finally presented with an infant badly in need of parenting, they find themselves caught up in a drama that extends well beyond the confines of their immediate world. A story about confronting homophobia, falling in love, getting older, and getting a little bit smarter, The Kid is a book about the very human desire to have a family.

From the Back Cover

From Dan Savage, the writer whose sex-advice column, "Savage Love", enrages and excites four million people every week, comes the story of his journey into parenthood.

For Dan and his boyfriend Terry, the odyssey begins at a seminar in Portland where (after rejecting the idea of making a "biokid" with a lesbian couple, a lesbian single, and their straight next-door neighbor), they decide on an "open adoption". The birth mother who selects them as the adoptive parents for her child is a street kid named Melissa, who drinks and uses drugs during pregnancy and who, despite doctor's orders, is still living on the streets. As Dan and Terry tag along on her prenatal visits and the due date rapidly approaches, the fears common to adoptive parents mount: What if the baby isn't healthy? What if we aren't parent material? What if the birth mother changes her mind and decides to keep the baby?

In The Kid, Dan Savage shares his views on what it means to be gay and raising a child in America today. In the process, he takes his usual scathingly funny potshots at everything from growing up gay to committing to a younger man, from the gay left to the religious right, homophobia...love...getting fat...getting married...getting older...and the very human desire to have a family.

Review Quotes

"Savage tackles the politics of gay adoption head-on...Intelligent and honest...a love story, an argument, and a how-to book all in one".

-- The San Francisco Chronicle

About the Author

Dan Savage's column, "Savage Love," is a nationally syndicated sex-advice column read by more than four million people each week. He has written the column for eight years, and it runs in twenty-six newspapers in the United States and Canada. He also writes "Dear Dan," an online advice column for ABCNews.com. Savage is the associate editor of The Stranger in Seattle and a regular contributor to This American Life on NPR and is the author of Savage Love (Plume), a collection of his advice columns. He lives in Seattle, Washington.