Amy Scribner

Several years ago, author Lisa Grunwald came across a photo online that stopped her cold. It was a smiling baby boy, one of dozens of “practice babies” supplied by an orphanage to the Cornell University home economics program, starting in 1919. Fascinated, Grunwald researched further and found that hundreds of such babies had spent their first years on college campuses, raised by a rotating group of female college students.

Henry House, the complex and thoroughly captivating protagonist of Grunwald’s resulting novel, was a practice baby at the fictional Wilton College in 1950s Pennsylvania. Raised in equal turns by tomboyish Edith, feminine Grace, conflicted Betty and a handful of other practice mothers, Henry never experienced the healthy parental attachment that modern child development research has shown is so crucial in the early years.

The closest he comes is with Martha, the aging and lonely head of the home ec program, who through a twist of fate gets to keep Henry even after he is no longer a practice baby. But Martha is not the mother Henry so desperately needs—she is secretive and manipulative. Henry escapes through silence, not speaking for years. Eventually, he is shipped off to a boarding school for “mental defectives,” where an art teacher helps him realize his gift for drawing and the coeds help him realize his gift for attracting girls of every kind. But he’s unable to commit—to school or friendship or love. He drifts from his birth mother’s New York City apartment to California in search of home.

The Irresistible Henry House is a soaring, heartfelt novel that spans three decades and an entire continent. Grunwald, author of several novels including Whatever Makes You Happy, creates a wholly original and all too human character in Henry House. Despite his quirks and shortcomings (or perhaps because of them), Henry is one of the most likeable, relatable characters in recent memory.

Amy Scribner writes from Olympia, Washington.

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Review of Letters of the Century, edited by Lisa Grunwald

In House Rules, Jodi Picoult explores one of the more polarizing and confounding issues facing parents today: Are childhood vaccines somehow linked to the hauntingly frequent diagnoses of autism in today’s kids? And what does our society need to do to accommodate this growing group of people who communicate differently, if at all?

Jacob Hunt looks like any other teenager, but once he starts talking it becomes clear that he’s not, as parents of children with autism often say, “neurotypical.” Dismal at understanding the social cues that guide human interaction, he doesn’t understand why kids at his high school don’t want to hear about his vast, gory knowledge of forensic science. He’s highly sensitive to unexpected situations, the sound of crumpling paper and the color orange. He’s mystified when local cops don’t appreciate him showing up at crime scenes (his mom gave him a police scanner as a well-meaning but misguided birthday gift) to point out all the clues they’ve missed. Jacob’s diagnosis of Asperger’s Syndrome—and his involvement in local crimes—has made his family outcasts in their own small New England town.

“I just don’t get the social hints that other people do,” Jacob says. “So if I’m talking to someone in class and he says, ‘Man, is it one o’clock already?’ I look at the clock and tell him that yes, it is one o’clock already, when in reality he is trying to find a polite way to get away from me. I don’t understand why people never say what they mean.” Jacob’s only friend is his social skills tutor, Jess, a student at the local college. But when Jess turns up dead, all clues point to Jacob. Even his mother, who has devoted her life to every therapy and supplement that can improve Jacob’s quality of life, is left wondering whether her son is capable of snapping.

Picoult is at her razor-sharp best with House Rules. It’s both a tender look at the depths of a mother’s love and a searing examination of how we treat those who are different, and whether we expect them to play by the same rules.

Amy Scribner writes from Olympia, Washington.