Writers are always told, “Write what you know.” In his second novel, “That Kind of Mother,” Brooklyn writer Rumaan Alam has done just that — with a twist.
Alam is an Indian man with a white husband and two adopted black sons.
His well-intentioned novel is also about a mixed-race family enriched by adoption, but he approaches it through the one lens his own family lacks: that of the mother.
Like many first-time parents, poet Rebecca Stone is completely overwhelmed. Thankfully, she has Priscilla, her La Leche coach. Priscilla becomes her nanny, allowing Rebecca to focus on her writing. Then Priscilla dies in childbirth.
The baby’s father is unknown, and Priscilla’s daughter Cheryl, about to have her own child, doesn’t want to raise her brother, too. So Rebecca, who is white, adopts Priscilla’s son, Andrew, who is black.
Alam has created a complex character in Rebecca, an overwhelmed mother of two. She is not a great listener and her actions can come off with a twinge of white savior complex.
And while he clearly cares about this subject, highlighting the potential pitfalls of Andrew growing up without black parents — an issue compounded by Rebecca’s go-it-alone tendencies — these weightier matters lose out to her continual carping about lost freedom and writing time.
The novel’s most gripping episode happens after Cheryl’s husband gets pulled over by the police. He tries to tell Rebecca what her young son will need to know about being black in America. The novel could have benefited from more scenes like that.
