Far From the Tree (Solomon) - Book Reviews

Book Reviews
[Solomon's] winding volume sometimes tried my patience, but my respect for it rarely wavered…The bulk of Far From the Tree comprises profiles of families in extremis. Many of these will leave you weeping at the resilience so many display in the face of adversity. "I almost drowned him in the tears I shed over him," one mother says about a son with Down syndrome. That's a typical sentence here. This is a book that shoots arrow after arrow into your heart. Yet there's nothing maudlin. Mr. Solomon's prose is dry and epigrammatic.
Dwight Garner - New York Times


It’s a book everyone should read and there’s no one who wouldn’t be a more imaginative and understanding parent—or human being—for having done so.
Julie Myerson - New York Times Book Review


Solomon forcefully showcases parents who not only aren't horrified by the differences they encounter in their offspring, but who rise to the occasion by embracing them. In so doing, they reveal a "shimmering humanity" that speaks to our noblest impulses to nurture. Far From the Tree is massively ambitious and...often inspirational about the "infinitely deep" and mysterious love of parents for their children.
Lisa Zeidner - Washington Post


Solomon is a storyteller of great intimacy and ease…He approaches each family’s story thoughtfully, respectfully…Bringing together their voices, Solomon creates something of enduring warmth and beauty: a quilt, a choir.
Kate Tuttle - Boston Globe


[A] masterpiece of non-fiction, the culmination of a decade’s worth of research and writing, and it should be required reading for psychologists, teachers, and above all, parents.... A bold and unambiguous call to redefine how we view difference…A stunning work of scholarship and compassion.
Carmela Ciuraru - USA Today


A book of extraordinary ambition…Part journalist, part psychology researcher, part sympathetic listener, Solomon’s true talent is a geographic one: he maps the strange terrain of the human struggle that is parenting.
Brook Wilensky-Lanford - San Francisco Chronicle


Masterfully written and brilliantly researched…Far from the Tree stands apart from the countless memoirs and manuals about special needs parenting published in the last couple of decades.
Tina Calabro - Pittsburgh Post-Gazette


A brave, beautiful book that will expand your humanity.
Anne Leslie - People


Monumental.... Solomon has an extraordinary gift for finding his way into the relatively hermetic communities that form around conditions...and gaining the confidence of the natives.
Lev Grossman - Time


A profoundly moving new work of research and narrative.... Solomon explores the ways that parents of marginalized children—being gay, dwarf, severely disabled, deaf, autistic, schizophrenic...—have been transformed and largely enriched by caring for their high-needs children.... Sifting through arguments about nature versus nurture, Solomon finds some startling moments of discovery.... Solomon’s own trials of feeling marginalized as gay, dyslexic, and depressive, while still yearning to be a father, frame these affectingly rendered real tales about bravely playing the cards one’s dealt.
Publishers Weekly


(Starred review.) Years of interviews with families and their unique children culminate in this compassionate compendium…The truth Solomon writes about here is as poignant as it is implacable, and he leaves us with a reinvented notion of identity and individual value.
Booklist


Solomon writes about the transformative, "terrifying joy of unbearable responsibility" faced by parents who cherish severely disabled children, and he takes an in-depth look at the struggles of parents of autistic children who behave destructively. He also explores the fascinating mental lives of independently functioning autistic individuals and speculates on the possibility that geniuses such as Mozart and Einstein were at the far end of the spectrum. Throughout, Solomon reflects on his own history as a gay man who has been bullied when he didn't conform to society's image of masculinity. An informative and moving book that raises profound issues regarding the nature of love, the value of human life and the future of humanity.
Kirkus Reviews