Synopsis:

A Theory of Relativity, the most acclaimed of my novels, was inspired by "the blood relative case," a real custody case that took place in a city near where I live. When his 26-year-old sister (who suffers from cancer) dies in a car accident with her husband, leaving behind a baby daughter, Gordon McKenna naturally believes he will adopt the baby girl, Keefer, whom he has helped raise. His hopes are dashed in an eight-minute hearing when a judge points out that Gordon, adopted as a newborn, is not a blood relative of Keefer's and gives custody to a second cousin of the baby's father. As Gordon fights an ultimately losing battle to become a father, he realizes that he has not yet become a man, and it is his growth as a human being that gives him the maturity, after two years of legal wrangling, to give Keefer up, rather than uproot her from the only home she has known. Fate, however, has other ideas. A Theory of Relativity does not only trace the struggles of one family, but asks the meaning of connection among the members of all families.

 

 

"A Theory of Relativity is Jacquelyn Mitchard at her best, at work with her most provocative themes, especially the profound matters of identity that become bound up in our love for a child." -Scott Turow

 

"Written with a deft hand and born of personal experience ... packed with smart observations and segueing smoothly from one plot twist to the next ... Mitchard shines." -Kansas City Star

 

"It is Mitchard's considerable talent in rendering the complexity of human emotion that will touch her readers." -San Diego Union-Tribune

 

"Mitchard ... offers another slam dunk here ... these characters are wonderfully human and their wrenching situation is skillfully unfurled." -Library Journal

 

"Emotionally intense, sexy, and rendered in fine detail." -Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel

 

"A fine novel ... [an] astonishing pleasure." - Seattle Times

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Topics/Categories:

Adoption, Death, Law

Type of Work:

Book Novel

Publishers:

Harper Collins

Original Publish Date:

2002-11-04

ISBNs:

0007139853 978-0007139859

Formats:

Hardcover, Paperback