Stuck in the Middle with You: A Memoir of Parenting in Three Genders

A father for ten years, a mother for eight, and for a time in between, neither, or both ("the parental version of the schnoodle, or the cockapoo"), Jennifer Finney Boylan has seen parenthood from both sides of the gender divide. When her two children were young, Boylan came out as transgender, and as Jenny transitioned from a man to a woman and from a father to a mother, her family faced unique challenges and questions. In this thoughtful, tear-jerking, hilarious memoir, Jenny asks what it means to be a father, or a mother, and to what extent gender shades our experiences as parents. "It is my hope," she writes, "that having a father who became a woman in turn helped my sons become better men." 

     Through both her own story and incredibly insightful interviews with others, including Richard Russo, Edward Albee, Ann Beattie, Augusten Burroughs, Susan Minot, Trey Ellis, Timothy Kreider, and more, Jenny examines relationships with fathers and mothers, people's memories of the children they were and the parents they became, and the many different ways a family can be. Followed by an Afterword by Anna Quindlen that includes Jenny and her wife discussing the challenges they've faced and the love they share, Stuck in the Middle with You is a brilliant meditation on raising – and on being – a child.

   Jenny Finney Boylan told her wife that she was transgender when their two children were young, and as Jenny transitioned from a man to a woman and from a father to a mother, their family faced unique challenges and questions. In this thoughtful, tear-jerking, hilarious memoir, Jenny asks what it means to be a father, or a mother. 

   From the friends who support their new configuration to the woman who says she's "too close-minded" to let their sons continue to play together to Jenny's wife, their family grows and changes together in ways both utterly exceptional and entirely commonplace, as their sons turn into teenagers and a relationship of many years weathers illness, loss of parents, and a husband turning into a wife. 

   Through incredibly insightful interviews, Jenny examines relationships with fathers and mothers, people's memories of the children they were and the parents they had, and the many different ways a family can be. Jenny includes conversations with Richard Russo, Edward Albee, Ann Beattie, Augusten Burroughs, Susan Minot, Trey Ellis, Timothy Kreider, Anna Quindlen, and other parents and children discussing gender, how families are shaped, and the difficulties and wonders of being human.

   Followed by an Afterword by Anna Quindlen that includes Jenny and her wife discussing the challenges they've faced and the love they share, Stuck in the Middle with You will be another classic.