Event

John Schwartz Oddly Normal

John Schwartz Oddly Normal-Nov 11th at 7:30pm at Mandel JCC

In this moving account of a family's journey to raise and protect their gay son, New York Times correspondent Schwartz begins with his son Joe's suicide attempt, discovering afterwards that his son had come out to his classmates that afternoon. Joe's parents had always suspected the youngest of their three children might be gay, playing with dolls and wearing pink light-up shoes, but he had only coyly revealed his sexuality to his parents a week before his suicide attempt. With an unusual condition therapists variously diagnosed over the years as Asperger's, bi-polar, ADHD, among others, school was always a challenge for Joe. Schwartz recounts in sometimes painful detail his and his wife's difficulties in getting Joe the help he so desperately needed. With the new support, Joe thrived. Equally humorous and heartrending, this memoir reveals just what it takes to raise children who are different in a world still resistant.