The Martian Child: A Novel About a Single Father Adopting a Son Book

This book was incredibly frustrating. I stumbled across it at the library and picked it up because I'd heard that it's being made into a movie starring John Cusack. I was also somewhat intrigued by the premise, which is based on the author's own life: a single, gay sci-fi writer decides he wants to adopt a kid, but the boy he becomes committed to is very troubled and thinks he (the boy) is a Martian. My main worry going in was that it was going to be too saccharine (favorable comparisons to Tuesdays with Morrie on the front cover are actually more likely to deter me than make me read something); it mostly wasn't. Instead, however, it's incredibly scattered. The book starts out at a fairly normal pace, but halfway through Gerrold abruptly changes gears and goes from describing how he tried to help his adopted son, Dennis, to adjust, to actually'though self-consciously'thinking that Dennis may really be from Mars. Then that line of thought is abruptly abandoned. Other seemingly major incidents'like a conflict with intolerant neighbors that we're told resulted in legal action'are glossed over in a paragraph or two, while other (lame) running jokes and frankly irrelevant thoughts on the nature of storytelling are given pages of pages of time. It's a mess. A well-intended mess, but a mess.

Oddly, I do think this could make a good movie, if whoever's adapting it gives it some badly-needed structure. Although'guess what?'a quick check of IMDb reveals that in the film, Cusack's character is suddenly straight. Sigh.