![]() ![]() Frankel places Poppy in a thoroughly empathetic and loving family, the kind that picks up and moves to Seattle the minute they encounter a whiff of homophobia in their town. These moments startle, and yet the book feels a little too close to home, a little too, well, safe. The parents find themselves on new and scary terrain, trying to balance Poppy’s safety and happiness in a world where she might be bullied with her need to be herself. ![]() Frankel unfolds the story more or less in chronological order: A couple (Penn and Rosie) date, fall in love, have children (five!), and then the last one (Claude) disrupts the expected order by declaring he is a girl (now Poppy). The result is a novel that feels more like a fictionalized account, in ways that are both deeply satisfying and sometimes limiting. You can almost see Frankel flipping through the family albums, looking for inspiration. ![]() The fictional family lives in Seattle, just like the author’s real family, and they come more or less from the same social class. (She recently wrote a Modern Love column for The Times about it.) Her new novel, “This Is How It Always Is,” centers on a young boy who decides he is a girl. ![]() Laurie Frankel has a son who, in first grade, decided he was a girl. One pleasure of being a novelist, I imagine, is playing out scenarios from your own life, but tweaking the characters, or setting, or maybe most satisfying, the ending. THIS IS HOW IT ALWAYS IS By Laurie Frankel 327 pp. ![]()
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