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Summary
Summary
"Sam and Ed are living the good life. Ed is an editor at an Italian art magazine. Sam a successful chiropractor. Though devoted to one another, they have no longings for the joyful mysteries of parenthood." "But when eleven-year-old Scot's mother dies suddenly, the couple is determined to make good on a wine-soaked promise made years before. Plunging into a flurry of activity, they do their best to prepare themselves and their home for Scot's arrival. They hang a tire swing in the front yard, rearrange their furniture and their work schedules, and call the neighborhood school to arrange for enrollment. None of their well-intended preparations, however, can ready them for Scot."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved
Reviews (3)
Publisher's Weekly Review
Two gay menÄone a New Age chiropractor, the other an editor at an ultra-hip Italian art magazineÄlive happily together in Cambridge, not too far from Harvard. Sam (the chiropractor) learns that his brother's ex-girlfriend has suddenly died and named Sam legal guardian of her 11-year-old son, Scot. What follows is a wry look at how Sam and Ed adjust to surrogate parenthood, which they had politely, drunkenly and hypothetically agreed to years before. When Scot arrives at their home, these two generous, good-hearted men discover that they have a prepubescent Quentin Crisp on their hands. Scot's flamboyant, androgynous flair makes for some school yard and neighborhood crises, but the boy's innate sweetness and open-mindedness endear him to several youngsters and most adults. The action centers around the adjustments everyone is forced to make during the first semester of Scot's fifth grade at Parker Elementary School, where Scot learns that he must stop wearing pantyhose, eyeliner and perfume. Narrated by Ed, both the action and the asides are loaded with wit and emotion. By the time Sam's brother, Billy, unexpectedly returns from South America, readers know that Scot, Sam and Ed are a real family, and that the two men, patiently immersed in the joys and pains of parenting, are the boy's heroes. The prose in Downing's (Perfect Agreement) fourth novel is melodious and lucid. This heartwarming tale nobly defines and describes a potent, realistic new configuration of contemporary American family values. (Nov.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Kirkus Review
A middle-aged gay couple's misadventure in parenting is the subject of this wisecrack-laden fourth novel by the author of Mother of God (1990), etc. Life is moving along in an agreeable rut in Cambridge, Mass., for Sam, a busy chiropractor, and his partner Ed, who works for a tony art magazine (Figura) owned by a jet-setting cheapskate. But then unmarried Julie, Sam's brother Billy's former girlfriend, dies, and'thanks to a solemn promise made during a convivial drunken evening out'Sam and Ed inherit, if you will, guardianship of Julie's 11-year-old son Scot. This kid isn't your typical troublesome preadolescent. Scot owns a musical hairbrush and two make-up kits, uses Pink Gardenia hand lotion and won't go anywhere without his Chapstick, plus his interest in school sports is limited to baton twirling and an ambition to become a cheerleader. Downing tries to work up a perfunctory plot from Sam's vow to put ``more strut and less swish'' into their charge and from the complications that ensue when it's discovered that Scot isn't the only issue Julie and Billy created. But Downing doesn't seem to have decided whether to write a serious comic study of how Sam's and Ed's relationship is both tested and clarified by the changes Scot brings or a TV movie script festooned with one-liners. Some of the latter are pretty good (gay-couple friends own a ``feral poodle'; Ed repeatedly asks himself ``What do you say to a boy in a neckerchief?'). The best moments here depict Scot's effect on his guardians' extended family of varyingly deranged friends and on his ``normal'' schoolmates (who hassle him mercilessly and would doubtless prefer to burn him at the stake). The TV movie ought to be fun. And with the (really rather endearing) figure of Scot, some lucky young actor will have the flamboyant role of a lifetime.
Booklist Review
Witty and poignant, Breakfast with Scot is a hilariously sweet take on the woes and joys of parenthood as seen through the eyes of a gay couple. When Sam's sister-in-law dies, he and Ed agree to raise her 11-year-old son. An unusual boy in an even more unusual situation, Scot throws Sam and Ed's life into complete disarray. And when Scot begins to show his more flamboyant side--wearing makeup and lacy socks to school--Sam and Ed begin to question their own relationship, their abilities as parents, and the compromises they have made in order to live quietly within a predominantly straight society. Downing's prose is lively, quick, and vivid, yet his characters do not suffer from his humorous treatment of their lives. Sam, Ed, and Scot each contain an emotional depth normally absent in the characters of farcical comedy. Through the relationship of Scot, Sam, and Ed, Downing explores what it truly means to be a family, compassionately contrasting familial stereotypes with the realities of family life and showing how it feels to be a boy who doesn't quite fit into the role society has prepared for him. --Bonnie Johnston
