Jacqueline Mitchard: A theory of relativity

By ALEXA BRUCE

In recent years "family" life has become increasingly difficult to define. Sole, step, lesbian and gay parents, fertility treatments involving sperm and egg donation and issues such as surrogacy have challenged our more traditional understandings.

There may even be stalwarts who recognise only families comprising a mother, father and their biological offspring. Only the most rigid ideologists, however, would consider adopted children anything other than full family members. Yet it is the belief that adopted children are less "family" than blood-relatives which is at the heart of Jacqueline Mitchard's third novel.

The book opens with a car crash in which Georgia McKenna Nye, a young mother with terminal cancer, and her husband, Raymond Nye jun, are killed, orphaning Keefer, their 15-month-old daughter.

As the families struggle to come to terms with their grief, they must also face the question of who will raise Keefer.

Georgia's brother, Gordon McKenna, is the obvious choice. He had played an active role in his niece's life, often caring for her during his sister's illness.

The Nyes, however, have other ideas. Although they have had little to do with Keefer, they see her as all they have left of their son. They do not recognise that the McKennas have also lost their child. Georgia was adopted. Keefer, therefore, is not McKenna blood.

The Nyes' position would appear to be legally untenable, except that it is based on a real custody case. At the heart of the dispute is an American State law which gives first consideration for custody to blood-related family members. As Gordon is not related to Georgia biologically, he fails to meet the test of this statute. He does not have the same legal standing as the Nyes to continue caring for his niece.

It should be a compelling read. Mitchard, however, seems unable to let the story unfold.

Her attempt to debate the ideas and create a sense of balance by putting the case for the "blood relatives" fails abysmally.

The Nyes' position is indefensible, and Mitchard's struggle to find the arguments just makes the storyline clumsy and unnecessarily complex.

Her portrayal of the two families further serves to rob the story of tension. The Nyes are pleasant enough but somewhat fatuous. The McKennas, by contrast, may be quaintly flawed but are as charming and likeable as apple pie with sugar.

Mitchard's lack of sympathy towards the Nyes may well have been influenced by her own experiences adopting a child. While writing the book she and her husband found themselves facing a custody dispute when their application to adopt a daughter was challenged by the birth father.

Mitchard's first novel, The Deep End of the Ocean, was the first book selected for Oprah's Book Club in 1996, becoming an instant best-seller.

Although A Theory of Relativity is, in parts, a moving account of families dealing with grief, loss and the aftermath of tragedy, the lack of drama makes it difficult to care about the outcome. And the ending does just fizzle.

* Alexa Bruce is a freelance researcher and writer.

HarperCollins

$29.95