Sing You Home by Jodi Picoult, Allen & Unwin, $32.99.
Once upon a time, there was only one way for babies to come into being. Now IVF, sperm donation and surrogacy have opened up a brave new world, where a child with two mums is no longer a rarity.
Jodi Picoult’s latest novel focuses on a lesbian couple’s fight for their right to have a baby. But this is so much more than a courtroom drama — it’s an intriguing, moving love story and drama that is satisfying and thought-provoking to the last page.
Our leading woman, Zoe ,has spent 10 years suffering miscarriage after miscarriage and multiple IVFs, until she finally falls pregnant — but at seven months, she suffers a heartbreaking loss and her marriage falls apart.
The novel then turns into a touching and romantic love story — where to Zoe’s surprise, a friendship blossoms into more — and she slowly falls head over heels in love with another woman.
Suddenly she remembers the frozen IVF embryos she and her ex-husband never used, and the ensuring court battle for custody of these so-called “unborn children” is signature Jodi Picoult — reminiscent of her best-seller turned film, My Sister’s Keeper.
As Jodi explains, “Sing You Home explores what it means to be gay in today’s world, and how reproductive science has outstripped the legal system. Are embryos people or property? What happens when religion and sexual orientation — two issues that are supposed to be justice-blind — enter the courtroom? And most importantly, what constitutes a ‘traditional family’ in today’s day and age.”
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