Immediate Family

A Novel

By: Ashley Nelson Levy

Narrated by: Sarah Beth Goer

Length: 5 hrs and 48 mins

Publisher's summary

A tender and fierce debut novel that explores the bond between two siblings - one the biological child and one adopted from an orphanage in Thailand.

It is the day of her brother’s wedding, and our narrator is still struggling with her wedding toast. Despite a recent fracture between them, Danny has asked her to give a speech, and she doesn’t know where to begin, how to put words to their kind of love. She was nine years old when she traveled with her parents to Thailand to meet her brother, age three. They grew up together like any other siblings and shared a bucolic childhood in Northern California. Yet when she holds their story up to the light, it refracts in ways she doesn’t expect.

What follows is a heartfelt letter addressed to Danny and an attempt at a full accounting of their years growing up, invoking everything from the classic Victorian adoption plot to childless women in literature to documents from Danny’s case file. It’s also a confession of sorts to the parts of her life that she has kept from him, including her own struggle with infertility. And as the hours until the wedding wane, she uncovers the words that can’t and won’t be said aloud.

In Immediate Family, Ashley Nelson Levy explores the enduring bond between two siblings and the complexities of motherhood, infertility, race, and the many definitions of family.

©2021 Ashley Nelson Levy (P)2021 Blackstone Publishing

A short listen that’s worth the credit

I downloaded Immediate Family expecting to listen to a little bit everyday, but as soon as I started it, I couldn’t stop. It begins with the narrator’s being asked by her brother to give a speech at his wedding, then unfolds into an examination of the narrator’s relationship with her brother, who was adopted at a young age. At the same time, the narrator is struggling to get pregnant. Her uncertainty about that intertwines with her complex family history to deliver a heart-rendering, surprisingly funny and poignant novel. I finished in two sittings and will be going back to listen again soon.

the process

This book feels most real when describing the adoption process and IVF process. It is a coming to terms of an older sister with her adopted brother, as they move through adulthood. It would have felt more complete if we had heard other voices and more true ro recognize that the behaviors attributed to her adoptive brother could have just as easily manifest in a blood sibling.