Family Tree
Barbara Delinsky, 2007
Knopf Doubleday
368 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780307476098
Summary
Dana Clarke has always longed for the stability of home and family—her own childhood was not an easy one. Now she has married a man she adores who is from a prominent New England family, and she is about to give birth to their first child. But what should be the happiest day of her life becomes the day her world falls apart. Her daughter is born beautiful and healthy, but no one can help noticing the African American traits in her appearance. Dana’s husband, to her great shock and dismay, begins to worry that people will think Dana has had an affair.
The only way to repair the damage done is for Dana to track down the father she never knew and to explore the possibility of African American lineage in his family history. Dana’s determination to discover the truth becomes a poignant journey back through her past and her husband’s heritage that unearths secrets rooted in prejudice and fear.
Barbara Delinsky’s Family Tree is an utterly unforgettable novel that asks penetrating questions about race, family, and the choices people make in times of crisis—choices that have profound consequences that can last for generations. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• AKA—Ruth Greenberg, Billie Douglass, Bonnie Drake
• Birth—August 9, 1945
• Where—Boston, Massachusetts, USA
• Education—B.A., Tufts University; M.A., Boston College
• Awards—Romantic Times Magazine: Special Achievement
(twice), Reviewer's Choice, and Best Contemporary
Romance Awards; from Romance Writers of America:
Golden Medallion and Golden Leaf Awards.
• Currently—lives in Newton, Massachusetts
Barbara Delinsky (born as Barbara Ruth Greenberg) is an American writer of twenty New York Times bestsellers. She has also been published under the pen names Bonnie Drake and Billie Douglass.
Delinsky was born near Boston, Massachusetts. Her mother died when she was only eight, which she describes on her website as the "defining event in a childhood that was otherwise ordinary."
In 1963, she graduated from Newton High School, in Newton, Massachusetts. She then went on to earn a B.A. in Psychology from Tufts University and an M.A. in Sociology at Boston College.
Delinsky married Steve Delinsky, a law student, when she was very young. During the first years of her marriage, she worked for the Massachusetts Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children. After the birth of her first child, she took a job as a photographer and reporter for the Belmont Herald newspaper. She also filled her time doing volunteer work at hospitals, and serving on the Board of Directors of the Friends of the Massachusetts General Hospital Cancer Center and their Women's Cancer Advisory Board.
In 1980, after having twins, Delinsky read an article about three female writers, and decided to try putting her imagination on paper. After three months of researching, plotting, and writing, she sold her first book. She began publishing for Dell Publishing Company as Billie Douglass, for Silhouette Books as Billie Douglass, and for Harlequin Enterprises as Barbara Delinsky. Now, she only uses her married name Barbara Delinsky, and some of her novels published under the other pseudonyms, are being published under this name. Since then, over 30 million copies of her books are in print, and they have been published in 25 languages. One of her novels, A Woman's Place, was made into a Lifetime movie starring Lorraine Bracco. Her latest work, Sweet Salt Air, is published by St. Martin's Press.
In 2001, Delinsky branched out into nonfiction with the book Uplift: Secrets from the Sisterhood of Breast Cancer Survivors. A breast cancer survivor herself, Barbara donates the proceeds of that book and her second nonfiction work to charity. With those funds she has been able to fund an oncology fellowship at the Massachusetts General Hospital that trains breast surgeons.
The Delinsky family resides in Newton, Massachusetts. Steve Delinsky has become a reputed lawyer of the city, while she writes daily in her office above the garage at her home. (From Wikipedia. Retrieved 5/21/2013.)
Visit Barbara Delinsky's website.
Book Reviews
When Dana and Hugh Clarke's baby is born into their wealthy, white New England seaside community, the baby's unmistakably African-American features puzzle her thoroughly Anglo-looking parents. Hugh's family pedigree extends back to the Mayflower, and his historian father has made a career of tracing the esteemed Clarke family genealogy, which does not include African-Americans. Dana's mother died when Dana was a child, and Dana never knew her father: she matter-of-factly figures that baby Lizzie's features must hark back to her little-known past. Hugh, a lawyer who has always passionately defended his minority clients, finds his liberal beliefs don't run very deep and demands a paternity test to rule out the possibility of infidelity. By the time the Clarkes have uncovered the tangled roots of their family trees, more than one skeleton has been unearthed, and the couple's relationship-not to mention their family loyalty-has been severely tested. Delinsky (Looking for Peyton Place) smoothly challenges characters and readers alike to confront their hidden hypocrisies. Although the dialogue about race at times seems staged and rarely delves beyond a surface level, and although near-perfect Dana and her knitting circle are too idealized to be believable, Delinsky gets the political and personal dynamics right.
Publishers Weekly
A white New England couple, interior designer Dana and lawyer husband Hugh, are excited about becoming first-time parents. But when the baby girl is born with brown skin, questions and suspicions abound. Dana never knew who her father was, so perhaps there is black ancestry on her side of the family. However, Hugh's snooty family suspects infidelity-after all, there is an attractive black man living next door, and Hugh was out of town nine months ago. Dana vehemently denies cheating and is wounded when Hugh insists on DNA testing. Although Hugh's mistrust of Dana is disappointing, the real villain is his father, Eaton, who is less concerned with his granddaughter than with how this development could harm reception of his forthcoming book. When it is confirmed that Hugh is indeed the father, he and Dana seek to solve the mystery, uncovering family secrets and confronting prejudice along the way. Best-selling author Delinsky has written a compelling and thought-provoking novel that will have readers and book clubs exploring tough racial and family issues. Recommended for all public libraries. —Samantha J. Gust, Niagara Univ. Lib., NY.
Library Journal
Delinsky often writes with insight about complex family matters and here adds thought-provoking concerns about race in America to the mix in a novel that will stir debate and inspire self-examination. —Patty Engelmann
Booklist
Loyal readers who have followed Barbara Delinsky’s writing for many years will not be surprised at the depth of characterization in Family Tree.... Full of complex and fascinating family dynamics as its characters are forced to come to terms with issues such as faith, race and loyalty, Family Tree is thought-provoking and memorable.
BookPage
Delinsky's family saga explores how a white, upper-middle-class New England couple would react if the wife gave birth to an African-American baby. Hugh Clarke, a good-hearted Boston lawyer in his mid-30s, hails from impeccable Mayflower lineage. His beloved wife Dana never knew her father and was raised after her mother's untimely death by grandmother Ellie Jo, proprietor of a successful yarn shop. The Clarkes are overjoyed at the birth of their healthy daughter, Elizabeth, though startled by the baby's dark, curly hair and coppery skin. Hugh's parents insinuate that perhaps he's not the father. Confounded and hurt (as well as suspicious that Lizzie may have been sired by their attractive black neighbor), Hugh convinces his increasingly resentful wife to have a DNA test. It confirms that Hugh is the father and indicates that the baby carries the sickle-cell gene-inherited, subsequent tests reveal, not from Dana, but from Hugh. Was the reader ever in doubt? Hugh stands up to his superior father, a historian who seems more concerned about the impact of Lizzie's color on the reception of his new book than about the truth. Dana finds and confronts her father, while everybody at Ellie Jo's yarn shop gets to swoon over the newborn. Delinsky vigorously takes on some thorny racial assumptions here (i.e., that the dark-skinned child will not comfortably attend white-dominated schools) and admirably allows her characters to acknowledge and correct their biases. Fail-safe delivery of an issues-packed story perfect for reading groups.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
1. What were your initial theories about Lizzie's ancestors? Did you ever doubt Dana's fidelity?
2. How would you have reacted if you had experienced Dana and Hugh's situation? How would your circle of friends and coworkers have reacted?
3. Discuss the parallel stories woven throughout the novel, including Dana's painful reunion with her father, Ellie Jo's secret regarding her husband's other marriage, and Crystal's paternity case against the senator. What are the common threads within these family secrets? What ultimately brings healing to some of the parties involved?
4. Crystal's dilemma raises timely questions about the obligations of men who father children out of wedlock. Are Senator Hutchinson's obligations to Jay the same as Jack Kettyle's obligations to Dana? Should men always be financially obligated to their children, regardless of the circumstances? If so, what should those financial obligations be?
5. Why is it so difficult for Dana to feel anything but anger toward her father? In your opinion, did he do anything wrong? How does she cope with the shifting image of her mother?
6. What is the root of Hugh's reaction in the novel's initial chapters? Is he a racist? Is he torn between loyalties? Does he trust his wife?
7. Is your own ancestry homogenous? If not, what interesting or ironic histories are present in your ancestry? Do you believe it's important to maintain homogeneity in a family tree? If you were to adopt a child, what would be your main criterion in selecting him or her?
8. Discuss the many differences between Dana's and Hugh's families. What drew Dana and Hugh to each other? To what extent is financial power a factor inshaping their attitudes toward the world? What common ground existed despite their tremendous differences in background?
9. What accounts for the universal fascination with genealogy? Should a person be lauded for the accomplishments of an ancestor, or snubbed for the misdeeds of one? Is genealogy a predictor?
10. In chapter 23, Eaton voices his frustration by shouting questions at the portraits of his parents. How might they have responded to his questions had they lived to see the arrival of Lizzie?
11. What should Dana and Hugh learn from the experience of Ali's parents? What would the ideal school for Lizzie be like? What does Ali's story indicate about integration?
12. Recent developments in DNA mapping have made it possible to discover not only lineage (as was the case for the biracial descendents of Thomas Jefferson) but also many general geographic details about one's ancestry. If you were to undergo such testing, what revelations would please you? What revelations would disappoint you?
13. Discuss Eaton's “reunion” with Saundra Belisle. Were their youths marked by any similarities, despite the fact that they lived in distinctly different worlds?
14. What role does location play in Family Tree? Would the story have unfolded differently within the aristocracy of the South, or in a West Coast city?
15. What does Corinne's story reveal about the false selves we sometimes construct? Who are the most authentic people you know? Who in your life would stand by you after a revelation like Corinne's?
16. Does Eaton's history demonstrate the ways in which racism has waned in recent generations, or the ways in which very little has changed?
17. Consider whether the issues at the center of Family Tree manifest themselves in your life. Is your neighborhood racially integrated? How many people of color hold executive positions at the top companies in your community? Is there a gulf between the ideal and the reality of a color-blind society in twenty-first century America?
(Questions issued by publisher.)
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