Frank Carlson Library

A stillborn baby ends Max and Zoe's marriage. Max leaves Zoe and turns to drinking. Zoe falls in love with a female school counselor, Vanessa. Max finds help for his drinking problem through his brother's church. Vanessa and Zoe get married. Vanessa offers to carry one of Zoe and Max's fertilized embryos. Zoe goes to Max to get permission to release the embryos to her but Max's new found religious fervor leads him to sue Zoe for custody.

The kinds of families we see today are different than they were even a decade ago as paths to parenthood have been rejiggered by technology, activism, and law. Gamson brings us extraordinary family creation tales that illuminate this changing world of contemporary kinship. He tells a variety of unconventional family-creation tales-- adoption and assisted reproduction, gay and straight parents, coupled and single, and multi-parent families-- set against...

Sara and Brian live an idyllic life with their young son and daughter. Suddenly, their baby girl falls ill and her only hope for survival rests in her parents' ability to find a compatible bone marrow donator. Their desperate decision to conceive another child raises both ethical and moral questions and begins to erode their relationship. Their actions ultimately set off a court case that threatens to tear the family apart.