PopDaddy

PopDaddy is a new novel from Southern writer Jeffrey Roach that recounts the heartwarming and hilarious tale of how he and his partner Ken started a family in one of the unlikeliest places. The book takes place in the early 2000s, when single parent adoptions were the only way for a gay couple to adopt a baby from Guatemala and begins when the couple's best friend announces she's pregnant. Ken wants a baby too. What follows is a whirlwind eighteen-month journey that takes them from Dallas to Guatemala and back, as they work to bring baby Jackson home to meet his big, extended family. Along the way they discover that being "out" takes on a new urgency when the duo becomes a trio and that the word family is broad enough to include them. An excerpt from Chapter 6: "Maybe we should go to Guatemala." "And try to smuggle him back home? That sounds crazy, even for me." "No, silly. We aren't going to try to bring him back, but at least we can visit with him. Hold him. I don't know about you but I'm tired of only knowing our son through other people's pictures of him." Yes, I totally swooned when he said our son. He was right, we had seen lots and lots of pictures. Each new arrival would be carefully inspected for minor changes in our son, and then dutifully sent along to friends and family. This, in turn, would generate a flood of email conversation between us and them: Is his hair getting longer? Look how black his eyes appear in this one Isn't he handsome? Each picture was like another little stitch into the fabric of our lives that pulled him closer to us; he was no longer Carlos Enrique, an orphaned child in Guatemala, but Baby Jackson. And with each passing picture Baby Jackson became a little more firmly entrenched, not only in our lives, but also in the lives of the people who mattered most to us. "I think we should go see him. Go make sure that he's doing alright; make sure he knows that we are waiting for him." Ken was already convinced enough for the two of us.