Family Family

All of Laurie Frankel’s books are about non-traditional families, and she intentionally finds ways to complicate the storyline to reflect a more diverse portrayal of family in books. In Frankel’s widely acclaimed novel, This Is How It Always Is (2017), Frankel examines a family with a transgender child. The book reflects Frankel’s own experience with her adopted daughter, who is transgender.

Frankel also explores the challenges of adoption in Family Family based on her experiences. She describes adoption as a lovely but challenging process providing great joy. For example, when they adopted their daughter, Frankel and her husband thought their most significant challenge would be exposing her to her Korean culture. In her Author’s Note, she describes their learning curve and the impossibility of fully preparing for the challenges. Since there is no single right way to parent a child, Frankel argues there should be more diverse representations of families and parenting in books to reflect that family is complicated and messy and that sometimes kids need more than love to survive and thrive.

Frankel says there isn't a lack of representation for adoption in literature, but claims that most of it is negative. She acknowledges trauma and heartache exist in some adoption stories, such as her characters Fig and Jack. However, Frankel believes that adoption is not always occasioned by tragedy or is a “second-best” option for becoming parents. In seeking to flip the script on the misperceptions surrounding adoption, Frankel portrays adoption through various perspectives in the story. In particular, she gives focus to the birth fathers' perspectives, which are traditionally ignored. She delves into how adopted children negotiate their sense of self, balancing their biological history with their adoptive family's culture and values.

Frankel stresses that a found family can create stronger bonds than biology, as most people have a complicated relationship with their biological family. People often point to friends and say they are like family to them, emphasizing the value of chosen family over biological. Through her work, Frankel seeks to overturn people's implicit assumptions about how families are formed and widen the "normal" ranges to create a more welcoming, inclusive definition of family (Frankel, Laurie. “Laurie Frankel: We Adopted by Choice Not Necessity.” The Guardian, 23 Nov. 2017).