A LIE SOMEONE TOLD YOU ABOUT YOURSELF by Peter Ho Davies

At first, I thought this book was primarily aimed at parents.  However, I am not a parent, and now I wonder if perhaps that is a good perspective to have when reading this book.  Either way, the author takes a clear-eyed look at parenthood from the viewpoint of an unnamed father.  The novel opens with a married couple debating whether or not to abort a fetus which is unlikely to survive.  The very slim possibility that it would survive and perhaps even flourish is cause for much consternation and vacillating about what to do.  They ultimately decide to have an abortion, and then years go by before they are willing to try again.  The wife eventually becomes pregnant again and carries the fetus to term, but complications arise immediately.  Then when the child becomes a toddler, he exhibits developmental problems.  The parents are very reluctant to have him tested but suspect that he is on the autism spectrum.  How these parents navigate their second-guessing of the abortion, alongside raising a “twice-exceptional” child is the stuff of the novel.  Humor rescues this novel from being overly harrowing, especially while the child is a fussy infant and the parents wonder if the drudgery and sleep deprivation will ever end.  The delightfully clever wordplay is lighthearted and contrasts with the introspective seriousness of the subject matter.  For example, in one scene, the couple discuss how one of them is, at any given time, the “sparent,” i.e., the spare parent.  Ultimately, though, this novel is about a father working through momentous decisions and struggles that we often associate strictly with women.  This vantage point and the beautiful prose distinguish this novel from others that address parental struggles.