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A Memoir of Motherhood, Genetics, and Facing the Unknown
by Taylor Harris
Book Reviewed by:A Black mother bumps up against the limits of everything she thought she believed - about science and medicine, about motherhood, and about her faith - in search of the truth about her son.
One morning, Tophs, Taylor Harris's round-cheeked, lively twenty-two-month-old, wakes up listless, only lifting his head to gulp down water. She rushes Tophs to the doctor, ignoring the part of herself, trained by years of therapy for generalized anxiety disorder, that tries to whisper that she's overreacting. But at the hospital, her maternal instincts are confirmed: something is wrong with her boy, and Taylor's life will never be the same.
With every question the doctors answer about Tophs's increasingly troubling symptoms, more arise, and Taylor dives into the search for a diagnosis. She spends countless hours trying to navigate health and education systems that can be hostile to Black mothers and children; at night she googles, prays, and interrogates her every action.
Some days, her sweet, charismatic boy seems just fine; others, he struggles to answer simple questions. A long-awaited appointment with a geneticist ultimately reveals nothing about what's causing Tophs's drops in blood sugar, his processing delays—but it does reveal something unexpected about Taylor's own health. What if her son's challenges have saved her life?
This Boy We Made is a stirring and radiantly written examination of the bond between mother and child, full of hard-won insights about fighting for and finding meaning when nothing goes as expected.
This Boy We Made repeatedly surprised me. I'd assumed it would be exclusively about the medical mystery of Tophs' disability. But Harris elegantly weaves in a lot of other themes, too: mental illness, her own physical concerns, racism, faith, and advocating for her children's health and education. She recalls her teenage struggles with anxiety and the search for a medication regime that would help. A stay-at-home mother of three, she worries she's passed down her mental health issues to her older daughter...continued
Full Review
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(Reviewed by Rebecca Foster).
In This Boy We Made, author Taylor Harris finds out that she has a BRCA2 genetic mutation that puts her at about a 50% higher than average risk of developing breast cancer, and decides to have a prophylactic double mastectomy.
A mutation in the BRCA1 or BRCA2 gene is associated with a higher risk of certain types of cancer. Dr. Mary-Claire King's work from the 1970s onwards was responsible for discovering the BRCA1 gene's connection to hereditary breast cancer. In 2014, she was given the Lasker–Koshland Special Achievement Award in Medical Science for this work. Her findings led to the development of genetic testing for breast cancer risk based on BRCA1 and BRCA2, after their locations on chromosomes 13 and 17 were identified. ...
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Deesha Philyaw, author The Secret Lives of Church Ladies
Taylor Harris has masterfully captured the wonder and weight of the endurance race that is motherhood. Mothering in the face of illness and uncertainty as a Black woman is downright Olympian. Harris' beautiful, crisp prose drew me right into her family's journey. Their story is heart-wrenching, hopeful, and truly unforgettable.
