That Kind of Mother

It’s 1985, and like many first-time mothers, Rebecca Stone finds her-self equally overwhelmed and overjoyed by her new-born son. Her husband is willing to abdicate child-rearing to her so Rebecca is left on her own to juggle the demands of mother-hood with her own aspirations as a poet. Adrift, Rebecca looks to Priscilla Johnson, who comes to work as the family nanny and brings order to the house-hold even as her presence shakes up Rebecca’s perception of the world. And as race once again becomes a flashpoint in American society, so too it be-comes an opportunity for Rebecca to confront the blind spots in her own privilege. But when Priscilla dies unexpectedly in childbirth and Rebecca steps forward to adopt the baby, she is unprepared for what it means to be a white mother with a black son. As she soon learns, navigating motherhood will be a matter of learning how to raise two children whom she loves with equal fer-ocity, but whom the world is determined to treat differently.