Assessment:
Plot/Idea: Uncertain Fruit is a moving account of a gay couple's attempts to have a child either through in vitro fertilization or adoption. The authors honestly convey both the logistical challenges of conceiving as well as the trials of the adoption process, while also exploring the homophobia that the couple faces throughout their journey.
Prose: The Majoyas write candidly and authentically, with occasional lyricism uplifting the prose.
Originality: Stories surrounding the psychological and emotional struggles inherent in the adoption process are familiar; here, the authors distill the experience of grief and heartbreak in a manner that will deeply resonate with readers who may be facing similar circumstances.
Character/Execution: As a co-written memoir, this work effectively melds two voices. The dual timeline, which alternates between the couple's fertility trials and their negotiations with a pregnant girl's family to arrange for adoption, is gracefully presented, achieving a fine narrative balance. The prologue may benefit from being better integrated into the rest of the story.
Date Submitted: October 05, 2022
“I understand our grief is synonymous with the love we felt: the greater the love, the more enveloping the grief” writes Majoya in this moving debut co-authored with her wife, Rebecca. Chronicling their journey through infertility and ultimately a failed adoption, the authors share, in heartbreakingly powerful words, the overwhelming joy and suffocating grief along the way. After years of unsuccessful fertility treatments, Rebecca and Sallyann choose to adopt a baby whose young mother, Delilah, has decided she cannot care for him. But when Delilah recants her consent for the adoption several days after Rebecca and Sallyann take the baby home, they’re devastated.Readers who have struggled with infertility or the loss of a child will relish this gripping story— although the journey does not turn out as the authors hoped, in the end it’s equally moving and painful, delivering an intense message of love, forgiveness, and heartache. Sallyann is the initial impetus behind the couple’s desire to get pregnant: she helped raise Rebecca’s boys from her first marriage, but her yearning to be part of the infant years drives the two to pursue adoption after seven years of failed fertility treatments. And, despite the early warning signs, both Rebecca and Sallyann believe newborn Sage will be the answer to their dreams. Those hopes are so palpable that readers will feel their anguish alongside the couple when it all comes crashing down around them.
Ultimately, this is a story of love—the love between Rebecca and Sallyann and their joint devotion to Sage. Long after he has been returned to his birth mother, the couple silently orbit around the hole his loss has left in their life, and their attempts to rebuild their home will resonate with readers navigating similar waters: as Sallyann wonders, can love continue to “thrive regardless of whether we nourish it?”
Takeaway: A gripping memoir of infertility, adoption, and hope.
Great for fans of: Melissa van Soest’s A Family Affair, Rachel McCracken’s Chasing Kites.
Production grades
Cover: B-
Design and typography: A
Illustrations: N/A
Editing: A
Marketing copy: A
