Far From The Tree

The tales Solomon returns with, of profound disability and extreme differences overcome, make it a bible of empathy and inclusion - Spectator

Andrew Solomon’s Far From The Tree is a prodigious, illuminating book about the challenge of being a parent – especially when children are out of the ordinary - Observer

Life-affirming, thought provoking and highly readable, the book was compiled over 10 years of interviews and I found it deeply moving - Observer

Many accounts are desperately moving, but Solomon goes far beyond cheap pity... The book is an exquisite written study of parental love – as well as "a how-to manual for receptivity" - Herald

Far from the Tree is a landmark, revolutionary book… Andrew Solomon plumbs his topic thoroughly, humanely, and in a compulsively readable style that makes the book as entertaining as it is illuminating.

One of the most extraordinary books I have read in recent times – brave, compassionate and astonishingly humane. Solomon approaches one of the oldest questions – how much are we defined by nature versus nurture? – and crafts from it a gripping narrative. Through his stories, told with such masterful delicacy and lucidity, we learn how different we all are, and how achingly similar. I could not put this book down.

A passionate and affecting work that will shake up your preconceptions and leave you in a better place. It’s a book everyone should read… there’s no one who wouldn’t be a more imaginative and understanding parent – or human being – for having done so… breathtaking reading. - New York Times

Andrew Solomon reminds us that nothing is more powerful in a child’s development than the love of a parent. This remarkable new book introduces us to mothers and fathers – many in circumstances the rest of us can hardly imagine – who are making their children feel special, no matter what challenges come their way.

"Parenting," writes Andrew Solomon in Far from the Tree, "is no sport for perfectionists." It's an irony of the book, 10 years in the making and his first since The Noonday Demon, that by militating against perfectionism, he only leaves the reader in greater awe of the art of the achievable. The book starts out as a study of parents raising "difficult" children, and ends up as an affirmation of what it is to be human. - Guardian

The first thing you should know about Andrew Solomon’s new book, Far From the Tree, is that it’s a monumental work. This is 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. Far From the Tree is a stunning work of scholarship and compassion. - USA Today

Knotty, gargantuan and lionhearted… Mr. Solomon’s first chapter, entitled 'Son', is as masterly a piece of writing as I’ve come across all year. It combines his own story with a taut and elegant précis of this book’s arguments. It is required reading. - New York Times

Far-reaching, original, fascinating - Andrew Solomon's investigation of many of the most intense challenges that parenthood can bring challenges us all to reexamine how we understand human difference. Perhaps the greatest gift of this monumental book, full of facts and full of feelings, is that it constantly makes one think, and think again.

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 (starred review)

Solomon is a storyteller of great intimacy and ease… [He] creates something of enduring warmth and beauty: a quilt, a choir. - Boston Globe

Andrew Solomon provides us with an unrivalled educational experience about identity groups in our society, an experience that is filled with insight, empathy and intelligence. Reading Far from the Tree is a mind-opening experience.

Solomon is in many ways the perfect writer for the subject – nuanced, thorough, humane, and a gifted stylist. - New Yorker

Far From the Tree is a book of extraordinary ambition… From a writer known primarily as a historian of sadness, this sweeping tribute to the joys of parental love can be startling and ecstatic. - San Francisco Chronicle

A ground-breaking book - The Economist

Brought to life by its intimate domestic voices, many of them people who ended up falling in love with children they never knew they wanted - Economist

A life-changing book - Irish Examiner

Nobody could read this extraordinary, moving book and not feel enlightened, but above all enlarged, by it. - Spectator

I'd suggest this be made compulsory reading for an couple considering having a baby... This is a remarkable work: moving but never bathetic, challenging in parts but always worth the effort. I'd call it extraordinary - if only Solomon would let me. - Evening Standard

A book brimming with poignancy - Sunday Times

A fascinating examination of the accommodation of difference - Guardian

You don't so much read Far from the Tree as cohabit with it; its stories take up residence in your head and heart, messily unpack themselves and refuse to leave - Observer

A generous, humane and — in complex and unexpected ways — compassionate book about what it means to be a parent - Scotsman

The book is about people and their experiences and it is rich with their strategies, smiles and sadnesses - The TImes

Solomon writes movingly of the resources of support and empathy that he found among communities of the deaf, dwarfs, transgender children and people with Down’s syndrome

A catalogue of astonishing tenacity and unexpected joy that inevitably expands both our sympathies and sense of wonder at the immense variety of human experiences - Financial Times

This is a remarkable work: moving but never bathetic, challenging in parts, but always worth the effort - Evening Standard

Nobody could read this extraordinary, moving book and not feel enlightened, but above all enlarged by it - Spectator

Far From the Tree is the most important book I’ve ever read. It is a masterpiece of research; giving an impressive insight into human relationships and our tolerance of those who are different. If everyone read this book the world would be a better place - Farm Lane Books

A monumental and generous-hearted book, balanced between the universal and the particular, and gorgeously observed - Literary Review

Solomon’s compassionate study of these dozen loves that are, and are not, like each other, illuminates not so much the heroism of difficult kinds of love as the adaptability of every kind - The Tablet

A triumphant celebration of the power of parental love - Intelligent Life

Forces] the reader to meditate on a number of wrenching, often heart-breaking aspects of existence. And to mediate as well on questions of stigma and prejudice, callousness and cruelty, the widespread and extraordinary intolerance of human diversity, and the horrors that those attitudes and behaviours heap on the heads of those whose lives are already extraordinarily difficult, and on the head of those who love and care for them - Times Literary Supplement

Sometimes your child – the most familiar person of all – is radically different from you. The saying goes that the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree. But what happens when it does?

A seminal new book on how parents relate to their children: it will change the way you think about families and identity.

Groundbreaking new research: 200 families interviewed, 10 years of research, from highly respected Solomon who lectures at Harvard, Yale, Stanford and is doing a PhD at Cambridge

Moving emotional testimonies: uplifting stories from families, alongside Andrew Solomon's own story: he started the book as a single gay man, and finishes it married with a husband and four children

The Noonday Demon was an international sensation. It was shortlisted for the Pulitzer Prize, won the National Book Award and was listed as one of the 100 best books of the decade by The Times.

Comparisons with parenting titles (The Battle Hymn of the Chinese Tiger Mother/Amy Chua) and big issue books (Outliers/Malcolm Gladwell, Status Anxiety/Alain de Botton).

Winner of the Green Carnation award, and longlisted for the Samuel Johnson Prize for Non-fiction.