Far from the Tree: Parents, Children, and the Search for Identity

by Andrew Solomon

Genesis describes a world born in categories: God made grasses and trees, then whales and fish, then fowl and birds, then cattle and creeping things and beasts, then human beings to have dominion over all the rest. “Male and female he created them,” says the verse. In the great creation story, humans and animals occupy categories that can never cross, as do men and women. In the twenty-first century, new arguments are afloat that some human beings are not persons, that some persons are not human beings, that some men are women, that some women are men, that some human beings are persons but are neither women nor men. Globalization has blurred national identity, and intermarriage has compromised racial identity. We like categories and clubs as much as we ever have; it’s only that the ones we thought were inviolable turn out not to be, and others that we never imagined are taking their place.