Tales from the Fatherland

A story of adoption, queer parenting and gender expectations around family roles.

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'Necessary and illuminating' Times Literary Supplement

'A writer of genuine accomplishment' Good Book Guide

A story of adoption and queer parenting from the award-winning author of The Spring of Kasper Meier, The Other Hoffmann Sister and An Honest Man

I'm calling because we have a little boy, four weeks old, who needs a family.'

In 2018, after the introduction of marriage equality in Germany, Ben Fergusson and his German husband Tom became one of the first same-sex married couples to adopt in the country. In Tales from the Fatherland Fergusson reflects on his long journey to fatherhood and the social changes that enabled it. He uses his outsider status as both a gay father and a parent adopting in a foreign country to explore the history and sociology of fatherhood and motherhood around the world, queer parenting and adoption and, ultimately, the meaning of family and love.

Tales from the Fatherland makes an impassioned case for the value of diversity in family life, arguing that diverse families are good for all families and that misogyny lies at the heart of many of the struggles of straight and queer families alike.