The issue opens with Aminatta Forna musing on the legacy of slavery as she settles her family in Washington, DC, where she is constantly accused of cutting in line whenever she stands next to her white husband. Award-winning novelist Claire Vaye Watkins delivers a stunning portrait of a woman in the throes of postpartum depression. Helen Garner’s diary extracts offer insight into the ways we relate to one another. Booker Prize–winner Marlon James turns his attention away from distant fathers to write about his mother, who calls to sing him happy birthday every year. Even in the darkest moments, humour abounds: in Claire Messud’s home there are two four-legged tyrants; Aleksandar Hemon’s father declares war on raccoons; and Sandra Cisneros writes about her extended family of past lovers.
With outstanding, never-before-published pieces of fiction, non-fiction and poetry from literary heavyweights and up-and-coming writers, Freeman's: Family collects the most amusing, heartbreaking and probing stories about family life emerging today.
John Freeman is an award-winning writer and book critic who has written for numerous publications, including the New York Times Book Review, Los Angeles Times, Guardian and Wall Street Journal. He is the former editor of Granta and the author of Shrinking the World and a collection of author interviews How to Read a Novelist. He lives in New York City.
‘John Freeman is a literary bowerbird; he has an eye for treasure…[Freeman’s: Family] is less an anthology than a conversation, the sense of intimacy that sharing family stories invites in real life, captured on the page.’ Australian
