Synopses & Reviews
A page-turning generational saga about a young man's search for a parent he never knew, and a moving portrait of motherhood, race, and the truths we hide in the name of family.
Jenry Castillo is a musical prodigy, raised by a single mother in Miami, who arrives at Brown University on a scholarship — but also to learn more about his late father, Jasper Patterson, a famous ballet dancer who died tragically when Jenry was two. On his search, he meets his estranged grandfather, Winston Patterson, a legendary professor of African American history and a fixture at the Ivy League school, who explodes his world with one question: Why is Jenry so focused on Jasper, when it was Winston's daughter, Juliet, who was Jenry's mother's lover? Juliet is the parent he should be looking for — his other mother.
Revelation follows revelation as each member of Jenry's family steps forward to tell the story of his origin. Cartwheeling between the past and the present to stitch together the web of secrecy binding this family together while keeping them apart, The Other Mother is a celebration of love and resilience — masterfully exploring the intersections of race, class, and sexuality; the role of biology in defining who belongs to whom; and the complicated truth of what it means to be a family.
Review
“A sprawling, multigenerational portrait of a mixed-race family that begins with a man's quest to uncover the truth of his origins…a novel about longing, loss, kinship, talent, queerness, and what makes a family.” Kirkus Reviews
Review
“Riveting....Harper skillfully layers the narrative with accounts from the various characters' points of view, capturing palpable emotions and the fissures running through their fraught relations…handling themes of motherhood, race, and sexuality with aplomb….A heartrending story.” Publishers Weekly
Review
"The Other Mother breaks every rule of traditional world-building and creates the kind of full-hearted literary saga we are lucky to get once every generation. Dazzling." Kiese Laymon, author of Long Division and Heavy: An American Memoir
Review
"In her gripping novel The Other Mother, Rachel M. Harper challenges outdated ideals of family and motherhood, drawing us into a world where women choose themselves first — and we witness the beautiful avalanche of loss and heartbreaking erasure that follows. This book is for anyone who has lived in the shadow of another and wanted something more. I couldn't put it down." Jodie Patterson, author of The Bold World: A Memoir of Family and Transformation
Review
"A riveting, suspenseful, tender, kaleidoscopic rewriting of the American family — formed as much by blood and memory as by desire, will, and even deception. In Rachel M. Harper's masterful hands, ideas of family are exploded and put back together in an epic story as compelling as it is necessary. Harper has written a modern American saga that defines what we are and who we might become. This is an exquisite novel." Danzy Senna, author of Caucasia and New People
About the Author
Rachel M. Harper is the author of the novels Brass Ankle Blues and This Side of Providence, which was short-listed for the Ernest J. Gaines Award for Literary Excellence. Her work has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize and has been widely published and anthologized. Harper has received fellowships from Yaddo and MacDowell, and is on the faculty at Spalding University's School of Writing. She lives in Los Angeles.