The Irresistable Henry House

By Lisa Grunwald

Subjects: orphans, growing up, mothers, Women teachers, babies, Fiction, fiction, women, home economics, Attachment behavior, Home economics, Teachers, fiction, Orphans, Fiction, family life, general, Mother and child, fiction, life

Description: To the ranks of iconic mid-century modern men Gump and Garp, add The Irresistible Henry House. As imagined by Lisa Grunwald, inspired by the peculiar beginnings of a real baby, Henry's life unspools with more realism and intention than Gump's, with less a sense of dread than Garp's. But Henry and his story have the same almost-magic magnetism. Henry arrives in the world as a "practice baby," passed between a dozen young women at the Practice House of Wilton College's Home Economics program in a decidedly pre-Spock era that discouraged mothers from holding babies "too much." From the beginning, Henry inspires in women the desire for his exclusive attention--but none want them more than Martha Gaines, the program director, who has spent her career overseeing the proper raising of a string of "house" orphans who were eventually adopted out. *- Mari Malcolm, Amazon review*