On the Outskirts of Normal: Forging a Family Against the Grain

Mired in debt and on the run from a series of broken homes, about-to-be-divorced Debra Monroe pulls up in front of a tumbledown cabin outside a small Texas town. Its isolation€"miles from her teaching job in a neighboring city€"feels right. She buys the house and ultimately doubles its size as she waits for the call from the adoption agency to tell her she€s going to be a mom. Now in her forties, she is swept into the strange new world of single motherhood, complicated by the fact that she€s white and her daughter is black. As Monroe learns to deal with her daughter€s hair and to re-enter the dating scene, all the while coping with her own and her daughter€s major illnesses, they live under the magnified scrutiny of the small, conservative town.  Confronting her past in order to make a better life for her daughter, Monroe rebuilds not only a half-ruined cabin in the woods but her sense of what it is that makes a sustainable family.

€œHaving driven across the country to see her brand-new adopted granddaughter, Debra Monroe€s mother says the first thing that comes into her head: €˜I knew she€d be black, but not this black.€  Monroe simply says, €˜Mom, there€s a blank in the baby book called Grandma€s First Words.€  The sly, dry humor of this, the offering of the second chance, the reminder that everything, even the mistakes, will be written down€"tells you most of what you need to know about Monroe€s approach to life, and to memoir. Her generosity of spirit never fails her.€€"Marion Winik, author of First Comes Love

€œMonroe€s memoir forges a remarkable canniness about motherhood and its twin perils, grief and love.€€"Karen Brennan, author of Being with Rachel