Table of Contents: July 2018

Feature – 2018 Summer Reading Pick

[EXCERPT] That Kind of Mother

In Rumaan Alam’s second novel, set in the Washington, D.C., area in the 1990s, the well-meaning but privileged and naïve Rebecca becomes deeply attached to her newborn son’s nanny. When Priscilla dies in childbirth, Rebecca adopts her son—though she is unprepared for the ramifications of raising a black child as a white mother. In this excerpt, Priscilla’s grown daughter, Cheryl, and her husband, Ian, speak with Rebecca about the importance of talking with her son about racism and interactions with the police. | BY RUMAAN ALAM

Personal Essays

“Motherhood, Cleaved.”

My love for my youngest child, who was born to me, takes a different timbre from my love for my twins through adoption. Accepting this helps me understand the inimitable bond they share with their birth mother, and the ache she must feel. | BY LAKSHMI IYER

“But How Did He Know About My Mama?”

When my transracially adopted son was teased about adoption at school, he came home upset—and also bewildered about how his friend could have known. Was it wrong that my reaction turned from anger to laughter? | BY BILLY CUCHENS