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Donorboy: A Novel

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Overview

Rosalind had two mommies. Now, thanks to a tragic accident involving foodstuffs, she has none. And Sean, the sperm donor responsible for half her DNA (and nothing else), is taking custody. Rosalind finds herself adjusting to a new life that seems both hateful and surreal-she's an orphan with a new father, surrounded by friends she is beginning to despise and well-meaning adults who succeed only in annoying her.
Sean made a donation fifteen years ago, and his life since has not gone according to plan. Thirty-five, single, and still grieving the loss of his own mother twenty-seven years ago, he decides to take on the overwhelming task of caring for an unhappy teenager he doesn't know.

Told entirely through e-mail, instant messaging, journal entries, and other random communications, Donorboy is the comic, compellingly readable novel of how these two people learn to converse, cook, write heavy-metal songs, and nail windows shut on their way to becoming a family. Brendan Halpin has written a universal story of how we laugh, cry, and occasionally punch our way to a new life in the face of tragedy.

Editorial Reviews

A teenage girl becomes the ward of her sperm-donor father after losing both of her gay parents in a bizarre accident in this first novel, a modern spin on grief, catharsis and the art of parenting told in journal entries and electronic missives. Rosalind Butterfield is the rebellious but sweet 14-year-old whose home life is suddenly decimated when her two lesbian parents one of whom is a former sitcom star die in a freak accident. Rosalind's unlikely new guardian is her biological father, Sean Cassidy, a geeky, single public-service lawyer whose lack of parenting experience turns the initial chapters into a comedy of errors, starting with his first icy meeting with Rosalind. She writes about her life in a grief journal that she dubs "Fluffy"; he fills her in on his past in a series of e-mails. The tide begins to turn for Sean when he defends Rosalind at a school expulsion hearing after she decks a hockey player for making fun of her late mom, and slowly Sean and Rosalind cobble together an uneasy relationship that allows them to co-exist and finally respect each other. The unusual setup may strike some potential readers as contrived, but Halpin's storytelling flair and compassion make this an engrossing read. Agent, Curtis Brown Ltd. (Aug.) Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information. -- PUBLISHERS WEEKLY.

Author Information

Bio of Brendan Halpin

Brendan Halpin, a thirty-four-year-old high school English teacher, is the author of the acclaimed memoir It Takes a Worried Man. He lives in Boston with his wife, Kirsten, and their daughter, Rowen

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Additional Info

Imprint

Random House

Filesize

596.11 KB

Number of Pages

224

eBook ISBN

9780307415066

Awards

  • Alex Awards
  • Garden State Teen Book Award

Excerpt from: Donorboy by Brendan Halpin

Okay, so here we go with my grief journal.

Jesus, that's mad corny. "My grief journal." -What are you doing, Ros? Oh, I'm just writing in my grief journal. Okay, grief journal grief journal, mad corny, mad libs, mad stupid, mad at the world (are you paying attention, Denise? Make sure to ask, why do you think you wrote mad at the world there? I don't know, genius, maybe because my parents are dead and my dad is some dork and not Kurt Cobain or Bono or even that Everybody Loves Raymond dork or anything else I used to imagine, he's

just a regular nonfamous dork like any dad, and I have

absolutely no idea on earth why he would want me to live with him, I want to live with Aunt Karen, I want to die like Mom. And Mommy.

No, Denise, not really. I mean, I don't particularly feel like living now, because it seems really pointless, but I don't really feel like doing anything as big a deal as killing myself, and probably you don't want to hear this, Denise, but I don't really want to die a virgin, even though there's nobody I really . . . sorry, IM from Sasha, probably I should do this in a real journal instead of on the computer and it did cross my mind to say, "I have to go write in my grief jrnl :-[" but I was too embarrassed, it's too-see now when they ask what's hard about having two moms, probably the hardest thing is that when something is really really gay, like a grief journal, you can't say it's really gay, because that's like dissing my mom, who's dead . . .

Okay, fuck you grief journal and fuck you Denise, because I just sat here and cried for like ten minutes because my . . .

fuck.

I don't want to do this. Are you going to collect it, Denise? Am I going to fail grief? How did you do in grief? Did you ever take grief? What do you do when you go home? Do you have some dork that you love? Do you drive home and get crushed by stupid foodstuffs? I like that word. "foodstuffs."

What the hell was I writing about before I cried twice. Fuck you Denise, fuck you Denise, I hate you Denise, I don't want to sit with the sadness Denise, I want to not feel like this ever, I hate Sean who I can't even call Dad because he's just the stupid donor, I can't even figure out why he wants me, especially since Grandma is all, "I'm just too old, honey," and Uncle Mike is all, "I have to work on some of my own issues right now."

Then again, Mom told me they didn't know the donor which is obviously a lie, so maybe the petri dish part is a lie too, maybe, ick, well, I can't even imagine this dork having sex with Mom, but then again the idea of Mommy having sex with Mom totally icks me out anyway, so maybe moms are just yucky and shouldn't have sex at all but then they wouldn't be moms, so there is what they

call a conundrum, a dilemma if you will, impaled on the horns of the dilemma, killed by a truckload of turduckens.

Okay, IM from Sasha again, I guess she's nice to check on me, but I hate everybody worrying about me and talking about me and asking how I'm doing and how they all just look at me when I come to lunch because now I'm tragic, oh my God that is so sad, oh my God, I am so sorry, Oh my God Ros. Oh my God. I love them but I hate them and I wish they would shut up except when I don't want them to, but they always get it wrong.