Family Family

Family Family (2024) is a novel by Laurie Frankel. The novel follows India Allwood from her teens into adulthood as she chases her dream of becoming a Broadway star. Through India’s story, Frankel explores the challenges and joys of blending biological and adoptive families, as well as modern parenthood. In addition to her novels, Frankel’s work has been featured in The New York Times, The Guardian, The Washington Post, People Magazine, Lit Hub, and The Sydney Morning Herald, among other publications. She won the Washington State Book Award and the Endeavor Award. Her works have been translated into over 25 languages and adapted for film and television.

This guide uses the 2024 Holt and Co. e-book edition.

Content Warning: The book and guide contain discussion stereotypes of and biases against adopted children and families, childhood trauma, and bullying.

Plot Summary

The novel alternates between a past plot about India Allwood’s youth and a present-day plot about her life with her family. When India Allwood is a teenager and sees Guys and Dolls for the first time, she knows she is destined to become an actor. In high school, she’s never cast for the musical because she can’t sing well, but when she meets Robbie Brighton, who has a beautiful voice, she forgets all her worries. She and Robbie fall head over heels in love, and their relationship quickly turns sexual. After attending the school musical as a spectator, India conceives a baby, and suddenly, during her senior year of high school, she is faced with a difficult decision. Since she has already been accepted to college in New York, India and Robbie decide to place the baby for adoption. After each holds the baby girl once, they give her to Camille, who names the baby Rebecca. Though they had planned for Robbie to move to New York, he confesses to India that he can’t do it and ends their relationship. With a broken heart and a body still healing from birth, India moves to New York to start her life again. She keeps her pregnancy secret and quickly falls in love with living in New York and acting onstage.

In her junior year of college, India is cast in Ibsen’s A Doll’s House opposite Davis. The pair’s onstage chemistry follows them offstage, and they fall into a romance. While preparing for a gender-swapping Shakespeare role, India stops taking her birth control and becomes pregnant. Though Davis is angry, he supports her decision to place the baby for adoption. They chose a married couple called the Andrews because they share the same name. After performing a breakout role as a pregnant Lady Macbeth, a talent agent named Ajax contacts India. India gives birth to the baby, and his parents name him Lewis. Davis and India had planned to spend their life together, but he breaks off the relationship as he can’t make peace with the fact that she had accidentally gotten pregnant twice. India continues living in New York with her college roommate, Dakota, while both struggle to make it on Broadway. India’s agent convinces her to move to LA and try television and film acting as it provides steadier work. Simultaneously, India feels called to become a mother through adoption, and once she moves to LA, she begins the application process.

India takes a role on a television show called Val Halla just as she is approved to adopt twins named Fig and Jack. Balancing parenting and work becomes a challenge for India, especially since both children have trauma from their biological family situation. India falls into a comfortable rhythm of working and mothering. The show isn’t a success at first, but once the lead characters become romantic, it becomes a smash hit, and India is a megastar.

When the COVID pandemic hits, India’s work stalls, but Ajax brings her a movie role that she takes despite having qualms about its premise of traumatic adoption. After Flower Child premieres, India becomes the center of a media firestorm as adoption advocacy groups begin to bully her online. Unbeknownst to India, Fig tracked down Rebecca—now called Bex—and the two have a texting relationship. Fig asks Bex to come to LA to help fix her mother’s public image. Bex releases a video identifying herself as India Allwood’s biological daughter and calls off the online trolls. The video and India's statement to media journalist Evelyn Esponson only worsen the problem.

Bex arrives, and her mother soon follows. Evelyn Esponson and a swarm of paparazzi camp outside India’s house. Evelyn brings Davis to the home, thinking she’s found Bex’s dad, and Bex then learns about Lewis. Trapped in the home by the media, Bex gets to know her half-brother and sister, as well as learn more about India and her decision to place her for adoption. After India’s employers threaten to fire her if she doesn’t apologize to all the groups she’s angered, Fig becomes desperate. She contacts Lewis’s fathers and lures them to LA with a story about Bex needing a stem cell transplant. After Lewis arrives with his dads and India unravels the debacle, Lewis has the chance to bond with Davis, who says that he’s met Robbie and lives in Oregon. However, Bex still has questions and wants to find Robbie.

Bex convinces all the kids to take a bus to Oregon, and they show up at Robbie’s doorstep. However, India beats them there, and all the adults are with her. Robbie and India have a heartfelt conversation. India agrees to a tell-all interview with Evelyn Esponson, in which she makes no apologies for her stance on adoption, abortion, and parenting but extends love and empathy to anyone who struggles with family decisions. She announces she is retiring from television acting. At dinner, India toasts her large, complicated family, which is about to get more complex because she is pregnant and hasn’t told anyone but Ajax. Later, India and Dakota create and produce a play called Family Family based on India’s life, which they perform on Broadway.