Losing Isaiah

by Seth Margolis

Overview

A NATIONAL BESTSELLER AND FEATURE FILM STARRING HALLE BERRY AND JESSICA LANGE

"Riveting...impossible to turn away from." —THE BOSTON GLOBE

"Losing Isaiah pushes all the current cultural buttons...[Margolis] gets inside the head of every character." —THE WASHINGTON POST

"[E]ngrossing and, to its credit, offers no pat answers to complicated issues." —PUBLISHER’S WEEKLY

Three-year-old Isaiah has two mothers: and they both want him.

Margaret Lewin adopted Isaiah as a newborn—and she and her husband, Charles, give the boy all the love a child could want and everything that money can buy. But can even the most loving, caring white family be responsible for raising a black child?

Selma Richards is the boy's birth mother. When Isaiah was born she was illiterate, unemployed, and a crack addict. Giving up her son was the best thing for both of them—at the time. Now Selma has weaned herself off drugs, has a responsible job caring for another couple's child, and is learning to read. She's not rich and she doesn't live in the best neighborhood, but she's healed herself.

LOSING ISAIAH raises one of the most complex and emotional moral questions of our times, and keeps you rooting for both women until the inevitable and heartrending conclusion in which one mother ends up losing her son.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781626818613
Publisher:	Diversion Books
Publication date:	06/16/2015
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Sales rank:	927,176
File size:	2 MB

About the Author

Seth Margolis worked for six years as a volunteer tutor for Literacy Volunteers of NYC. He is the author of two mysteries, False Faces and Disappearing Acts, and he lives and works on New York City’s Upper West Side.

Editorial Reviews

Recent headline-making custody cases are echoed in this contrived, yet provocative book. Selma Richards, black, illiterate and drug-addicted, sold her premature baby boy Isaiah to Margaret and Charles Lewin, an affluent white couple, for $25,000. Two and a half years later, Selma has turned her life around: she is drug-free, employed, learning to read--and she wants her son back. But Isaiah is now a cherished part of the Lewin family and they will not give him up easily. Using the connections of her sympathetic reading tutor, Selma hires a powerful attorney, and a bitter custody case begins. What is in Isaiah's best interests? A strong cultural identity? Emotional and material security? Mystery writer Margolis ( Disappearing Acts ) turns a sharp eye on the legal system, the media and the less savory side of family life. Selma's pompous and self-serving attorney has his own reasons for taking her case. Charles unwisely begins an affair with a seductive co-worker. And Selma is pressured into adopting a deceptive life style. The message of the book is manipulatively delivered, some passages seem extraneous and the frequent switches in point of view are a blow to cohesion. Nonetheless, the story is generally engrossing and, to its credit, offers no pat answers to complicated issues. Literary Guild and Doubleday Book Club selection. (Oct.)

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

Using his major combatants in this novel that explores the complexities of interracial adoption, Margolis tries to manipulate the reader's emotional and ethical responses to this difficult issue. Charles and Margaret Lewin are the well-intentioned, loving, artistic couple who are raising the child that Selma Richards gave up two-and-a-half years earlier. Now, Richards has turned her life around; employed, drug-free, and learning to read, she wants her son back. The flaws and strengths of both sides are stretched through some lamentably stereotypical characterizations in which none of the people fare very well. The tie-in to the recent motion picture may draw new interest to this recording, but any insights from the exploration into the cultural and moral debate may be limited or lost to the characters herein rather than the society they might have served. Most libraries can pass on this one.-Joyce Kessel, Villa Maria Coll., Buffalo, N.Y.

Library Journal

YA-Selma Richards is single, black, illiterate, and living in Brooklyn. Margaret Lewin is married, white, educated, and has an Upper West Side Manhattan address. The common thread? Selma sold her child to Margaret in infancy for $25,000. Now she has turned her life around and wants to make a home for her son. She's kicked drugs, gotten a job, saved some money, and joined a literacy program. But most important, she's black, like Isaiah, and she is his birth mother. Margaret has seen the boy through a difficult infancy, provided him with what appears to be a stable home for two-and-a-half years, nurtured and loved him, and made him an indispensable part of her family. And what is best for Isaiah? That is the question in this thought-provoking, nonjudgmental book.-Pamela B. Rearden, Centreville Regional Library, Fairfax County, VA

School Library Journal

Isaiah is a bright, lively, two-and-a-half-year-old living in Manhattan. His adoptive father, Charles Lewin, owns his own graphic design firm. His mother, Margaret, is a photographer's agent. Isaiah's older sister, Hannah, attends an exclusive private school, while Isaiah himself spends part of his day in preschool and the rest in the company of an au pair. In alternating chapters, Margolis contrasts the privileged life-style of the Lewins with that of Selma Richards, Isaiah's real mother, a recovering addict who, at 29, is trying to learn to read. When Selma decides she wants Isaiah back, she enlists the aid of her literary tutor, Arthur Golderson. Golderson sees the case as a way to generate publicity and make a name for himself, since the Lewins are white and Selma and Isaiah are black. Complicating the case for Selma are her illiteracy, her history as an addict, and the fact that she has very few resources with which to support a child. On the other hand, Isaiah's adoption was not legal; and the Lewins' picture-perfect home life is marred by Charles' affair with a coworker. There are no easy answers in this novel, no heroes or villains. The author's way of depicting his characters' complex motivations helps keep the story from becoming sentimental or melodramatic.

Mary Ellen Quinn