Everybody’s Son audiobook

David Coleman has a heavy weight to bear. His son, James, was killed in an auto accident on prom night. James was destined to carry on the family name and business. David is a judge, and his father, here referred to as Pappy, was a long-time US Senator. After maybe too short a time, David seeks to fill the large gap James left by taking in a foster child.Nine-year-old Anton Vesper is having problems of his own. He’d been left alone before in the projects apartment he shared with his mother, but this time was different, longer, for example, seven days, and hotter, with temperatures in the 90s. The power had been shut off as well, and the front door was locked from the outside. Desperate, he breaks a window to get out and go looking for his mother, Juanita. He calls her Mam. Cutting his leg on broken window glass, his bleeding gains the interest of a cop. Mam is found at a crack den, where she had essentially been held prisoner by her dealer. She is charged with child abandonment and Anton becomes a ward of the state. Thrity Umrigar - from ArtsAtl.comWhen David meets Anton, he is smitten, in a parental way. He wants to help the boy, and maybe fill the large hole in his heart at the same time. This is a scenario Umrigar has worked with in the past. In The Weight of Heaven, a man is bereft at the loss of his seven-year-old son, and transfers those feelings onto the son of his housekeeper. Complications ensue, as they do here. In both cases white adults engage with a child of color. Indian in The Weight of Heaven and black in this one. David becomes increasingly attached to young Anton, and is eager to extend his time with him. Connections are used. Harshness is doled out to Anton’s mother, and David gets what he wants. Later, he engages in a particularly underhanded and cruel act to ensure that Anton would be allowed to stay with him permanently. How long can a building constructed on a corrupt foundation stand? What results when good intentions turn bad?There are supporting characters in Everybody’s Son, but the focus is on Anton and secondarily, David. Anton grows up in a very privileged white household, one in which he is encouraged, supported, and challenged. He struggles initially, but in short order he is brought up to speed in his school, gains a welcoming friend and thrives. After this, he does not really have to cope much with racial identity issues until college, when he meets and falls hard for a strong, opinionated black woman who challenges all his beliefs. I suppose one could look at this as a questioning of the impact of nature vs nurture. What sort of life might Anton have had, had he been returned to his crack-addicted mother? No-brainer, right? But what of morality? The legal system favors biological connection, so David had to break the law to get what he wanted. Even if what he wanted was a good life for Anton, using his power to secure rights to the boy outside legal norms is not cool. Everybody’s Son could so easily have been a morality play about black and white, comeuppance, and unfairness. But Umrigar is far too competent a writer to let things go there. David is not presented in monotones. He is a nuanced, flawed human being who truly wants to see to Anton’s best interests, and is willing to do what it takes, even at the risk of killing his career and marriage to do it. Is there selfishness involved? Of course. But he is neither all good nor all bad. That is not what Umrigar does. Her characters all reflect light in different directions from asymmetrical facets. Even crack-head Juanita is shown in both shadow and light. The primary journey here is Anton’s. How black is he? How white? And in looking at a wider frame, the tale calls to mind an increasing awareness of race, and how people are treated differently based on externals. Where does cultural blending become domination? Where does mixing become taking? Hardly surprising themes for an Indian woman raised in Mumbai who moved to the USA at age 21. And consistent with her prior work, which looks at the places where this color intersects with that, where have meets have not, where cultures clash and intersect, where need and desire engage with morality.Friendship permeates the story as well. Both David and Anton have besties who are always there for them. I suppose that is possible, but in both instances, it struck me that the friendships Umrigar describes were rather idealized, lacking the sort of nuance she applied to her characters. There is consideration given to choice versus destiny. David sees himself as not at all a political animal, and puts up resistance when queried about this or that move up the political ladder. Yet he accedes. Is it because he is giving in to the expectations of the world or is it his true self coming to the surface? Anton faces similar challenges. In fact the early working title for the book was The Destiny.This is the first novel by Umrigar that makes no use of India or people from India. The crack epidemic of the early 1990s informed setting the beginning of her novel then. While there is a look at the other side of the tracks in this book, it is not a large one. Where she has traveled the globe in prior work, this one is purely an American tale. While the story is definitely engaging, and Anton and David are well drawn, relatable characters, it seemed to me to not quite have the emotional oomph of some of her earlier work. The novel picked up the beat when the female characters took center stage, Delores Coleman, David’s wife, Anton’s mother, Juanita, and Anton’s girlfriend, Corine, all carry special energy to their scenes, adding powerful feeling to the story. While this may or may not be as riveting as some of her earlier work, Umrigar remains an excellent story-teller with interesting things to say, and an engaging way of saying them. An intriguing tale of race and identity, of love and morality, of seeking truth and then having to cope with what one finds, Everybody’s Son merits a spot on everybody’s reading list. Review posted – December 2, 2016Publication date – June 6, 2017=============================EXTRA STUFFLinks to the author’s personal, Twitter, and FB pagesDecisions, decisions, decisions. The poem Casabianca is mentioned early in the book. It is worth checking out the full text of it for possible significance in the novelOther Thrity Umrigar books I have read:-----The World We Found-----The Weight of Heaven-----The Space Between Us

A mixed-race child is born into a desperate situation fraught with dangers from poverty and despair. He is "rescued" when he is sent to foster care. He is assigned to a family, a very rich and powerful white family, who fall in love with him and have the means to help him reach the highest possible academic and professional positions. He, meanwhile, is waiting for his mother.When his mother is to be released from prison, she becomes convinced that her son would be best served by staying with his foster family, and she allows him to be adopted. He learns the real story of that decision many, many years later.In the meantime, this mixed-race boy lives with the rich and the powerful. He sails off of Cape Cod. He wears the clothes that mark him as a member of the elite. He gets good grades, does good work, spends time with good people....but something's always just a bit off.This book is an exploration of race, class, entitlement, and possibility, and these topics are explored in all of their painful and sobering complexity while, at the same time, Umrigar provides realistic characters, real choices, and thought-provoking insights. From the first page, the reader is gripped by the people and the situation, and comes away at the end with new ways of thinking about some of the huge issues that plague our society. Fabulous book.

4.5 STARSEverybody's Son is the second novel by Thrity Umriga I've tried and most definitely will not be my last. I loved her novel The Space Between Us when I read it a while ago but think I may have enjoyed listening to this one even more. Josh Bloomberg did a wonderful job of the narration but he had terrific material to work with. Whilst The Space Between Us was set in India and Everybody's Son was set in the USA they both centred around the divide between classes, the ways socio-economic situations play a huge factor in the lives of many but she skillfully brings the issue into focus in a very personal way.In this case our central character was Anton, a young black boy who had been placed into foster care aged seven after his drug addicted mother had left him alone in their home for a whole week. We follow Anton through the early days as he desperately misses his mother, as he eventually assimilates into his new life of wealth with his foster parents who later adopt him. The novel deals with a range of topics and forces readers (listeners) to think seriously about some big moral issues. Whose interests are more important; those of the child? the biological parent? or the adoptive parents? It's a story which reels you in and makes you want the best for every character even when they're making poor decisions. It's about family. It's about love and about making sacrifices. It's about race, it's about privilege and poverty. It's an excellent book.I highly recommend this audiobook and commend both the author and narrator for their efforts. Looking forward now to reading her other titles.

Overall I thought that this novel was a great exploration of race, class and the search for identity.

Everybody's Son by Thrity UmagarI have never been disappointed in any of Umagar's book so it is great pleasure that her newest book is a winner in my book. It is primarily about race in America. I really don't want to say too much because I think it is an emotional read and there will be many reactions to the questions poised in the narrative. 5 stars. Highly recommend.

I actually really enjoyed this book. I also always read the review of a book after reading it and have found my opinion sits quite differently on this piece. While some may argue it didn’t quite take advantage of the implications of its racial tones, I think that’s almost what makes it so powerful. It demonstrates exactly how many families think in this white savior narrative but also calling to light how the issue extends to be far more complex than simple racism. It’s loving someone who completely screwed part of your family over, but yet have done so many positives that are ingrained in your memory and are included in who you view as family. It’s loving someone who is ignorant, who doesn’t see your culture as part of your identity, and yet not realizing that their refusal to see color is harming you in the long term. Maybe it’s just that I have parallels in my own life, obviously not to the extent of tragedy that Anton had, but that same mental struggle over those who support you and those who see you. Yes, the book foreshadowed a bit too strongly, was quite unrealistic, and I could somewhat predict what would occur next, but I still couldn’t put it down.

Another amazing outing by Thrity Umrigar, and it's one that will keep me thinking for months to come. Anton is a 9 year old boy living in the ghetto with his crack addicted mother. Despite her addiction, she cares deeply about her son, and tries to do well by him. That's why when he finds himself locked in his apartment during a heatwave he doesn't freak out at first. He knows she'll come back for him. Days go by, and as the utilities are cut off, the heat rises, and he begins to run out of food he decides he needs to look for her. He breaks out a window and cuts his leg, the trail of blood leads a police officer to the fragile little boy and he is put in the custody of social services. Enter the Colemans. A rich, politically connected couple who lost their only son to a tragic car accident years before. They have signed up to be foster parents because David believes it will help heal the hole in their hearts. He is immediately taken with Anton, and the potential the child has for success, while being simultaneously wounded that Anton is still devoted to his crack addicted mother. Ultimately David uses his political connections and wealth to make sure that Anton stays with the Colemans, and is adopted and raised with the best opportunities money can buy. The story covers a 25 year span, and is heartbreaking in so many ways. As a mother who adopted her son out of the foster care system I can't help but connect with the characters. Like David, I fell in love with my son the moment he was placed in my care, and I can't say I wouldn't have made similar decisions to keep him without thinking of the effect on his birth mother. One of my favorite things about Thrity Umrigar is that she always manages to create multi-dimensional characters that are not all good, nor all bad, but simply human, and this is probably her greatest example of that.

This might be the best of Ms. Umrigar's six books that I have read. This is a story about a well-to-do white family who takes in and adopts a black child. So we come to the nature v. nurture ideology. It probes into the delicate areas of race and privilege, and the consequences of broken trust. It's also a reminder that we all should know from where we came because that aspect of our lives never leaves us, truly.At the end I had some sad feelings for Anton, our protagonist. He broke through a shell and I hope he came through whole.

5 Stars..ARC to be published June 2017

When she came to, she asked repeatedly for her baby boy. Swore that she’d intended to go out only for a hit and return home straight away, but Victor, her drug dealer, had raped her and kept her doped up. She’d locked the apartment door from the outside because the housing project wasn’t a safe place for a young boy to be alone. Hell, she did that even if she went to the food pantry. All the mothers did this to keep their babies safe, ask any of her neighbors. (p. 4)On one level, Everybody's Son is a story of white privilege and ownership, of believing that we deserve something (in this case a child), more than someone else does because we have significant emotional and physical resources to offer that child. That child is a thing that can be possessed. What nine-year-old Anton would want, what his birthmother would want, did not factor into the equation in this story – just as we would not ask the stray dog we adopt whether it wants to stay with us. (We might ask a stray cat.)I thought about King Solomon's decision as I read this book. There are two judges in Everybody's Son, although they are not as wise nor as objective. They are well-intentioned.It would be easy to paint the birthmother in Everybody's Son as bad, his adoptive parents as good (or maybe vice versa). Thrity Umrigar does not take the easy route here and avoids false dichotomies. All parties make mistakes, although they are also generally good. Anton hit the jackpot with these three parents.Umrigar's avoidance of dichotomies makes her ending unavoidable. I wonder whether Umrigar would have chosen the same ending if she were African American.As an aside, I'm the mother of an adopted biracial child. I sometimes reflect on what she lost in being placed with us. Her foster family – good people – had attempted to adopt her, but were denied that, perhaps because they were closer to her grandparents' age than her mother's. Let me be clear, we have been good parents, but what if the system had more strongly attempted to support her first family (or second) in order to keep it intact?

Loved this book! Finished it in one sitting on an airplane! Great narrative arc and it raises lots of questions about race-great for a book club selection!

Thrity Umrigar writes about forgiveness in many of her novels. But it's not a quick and easy forgiveness. It's hard, and painful, and emotionally wrenching. And it's not always granted. In her latest novel, Everybody's Son, there is a lot of forgiveness that needs to be given all around. Anton is left alone in a sweltering apartment for a week at the age of nine while his mother, addicted to crack, disappears. After his ordeal, he finds himself in the foster system, and taken in by a wealthy older couple whose own son died tragically in a high school accident. Their fostering evolves into an adoption, despite the fact of his mother's existence, and years go by where Anton basks in the glow of white privilege, much to the criticism of his black, college girlfriend..When truths emerge, on the cusp of what may be the biggest achievement of Anton's life, his entire existence is turned inside-out, and he must look at his entire world, and all the people for whom he has played to role of son, in a new light. For the second time in his life, he must undergo a nearly complete transformation, or perhaps, an evolution, not discarding the past, but integrating his many facets into a single, functional man. This emotionally wrenching, and carefully constructed book shows Umrigar reaching new heights. It touches the reader deeply on a personal level, while touching on the fractured politics and civil injustices that society struggles with so strongly in today's world.