Expecting Adam: A True Story of Birth, Rebirth and Everyday Magic Book

Memoirs are tough. They lie in that fuzzy grey area somewhere between truth and fiction, and are, by definition, the subjective experiences of someone you may or may not like. This book is, shall we say, less grey than most--I would actually call it a novel.

I had nothing else to read, the library was closed, and I thought this book would be an interesting insight into another family with Down syndrome. The book was entertaining--albeit more for the the author's fantastic experiences and her almost comical, extreme disdain for Harvard--but hardly a great read. I should have known that I was in trouble when the author purports to have felt the night she and her husband conceived their son that she was "consciously making" herself pregnant, and then two pages later, insists she had no idea her nausea was an indication of pregnancy. A subsequent Google search revealed the author's previous book--Breaking the Cycle--was coauthored with her husband and concerns fighting the "addiction" of homosexuality. Further Google research claims the author and her husband both came out of the closet in 2003. Am I alone in thinking this lowers the author's credibility a bit?

Here's the real issue: the book's message, that children with disabilities should be appreciated beyond their intellectual greatness, is one I'd like to get behind in a big way. But the author, in describing the multiple paranormal experiences that took place during her pregnancy (including many voices telling her not to abort the child), makes other parents of children with disabilities wonder: where were my voices? Why couldn't Martha Beck tell us the story of her love for her son and how it flew in the face of her family and community WITHOUT falling back on angelic messengers to take the responsibility?