2023 Best Book Awards Finalist in Fiction: Literary and Fiction: Women’s Fiction
2023 American Fiction Awards Finalist in Literary Fiction

“This novel offers rich reportage on the consequences of adopting... An evocative tale about the intertwining life choices, challenges, and tragedies of an adoption.”
—Kirkus Reviews

"The thoughts, feelings, and actions that go into adoption are explored in the novel The Earthquake Child, which glories in human faults and virtues.”
—Foreword Clarion Reviews

“The Earthquake Child is a clear-eyed look at the most complicated of family lives, bound tightly by loyalty and ineradicable love.”
—Susan Straight, National Book Award Finalist and author of Mecca, In the Country of Women and Highwire Moon

“Elayne Klasson’s second novel, The Earthquake Child, demonstrates her psychologically sophisticated treatment of a woman’s journey toward building a family. Anyone who has ever had to send a child away for his safety will relate to Klasson’s authentic, sensitive portrayal of that agony. This deeply affecting, well-told story has no villains or heroes. Rather, good human beings trying to address the hurdles of forming and blending families, never knowing which challenges for an adopted child are just tremors, which will become major quakes, and how to manage expectations in the aftershocks. Don’t miss this book.”
—Barbara Stark-Nemon, author of Even in Darkness and Hard Cider

“A riveting familial rollercoaster, The Earthquake Child portrays one mother’s determination to raise a child. Bravo to Elayne Klasson for so honestly describing the ripple effects of adoption, for child, birth parents, and adoptive parents. This is a gripping story wrought with emotion and truth.”
—Jeanne McWilliams Blasberg, author of Eden and The Nine

“Elation, sadness, disappointment, rage, and love explode from the pages of The Earthquake Child—emotions rendered even more compelling as they are experienced through the alternating perspectives of an adopted boy, his birth-mother, and his adoptive family. A moving and evocative tale, consummately constructed, and beautifully told.”
—Robert Steven Goldstein, author of Enemy Queen, Will’s Surreal Period, and Cat’s Whisker

“In Elayne Klasson’s new novel, the mother-child relationship takes center stage, but is amplified by the adoption equation. This well-crafted and true-to-life plot involves two mothers and the son they both cherish. It is about love, loss, longing, and the road to becoming whole. The Earthquake Child shows the fierceness of a mother’s love, the angst of adoption, and the secrets that set individual wants and needs colliding. Whether you are inside the adoption experience or on the outside looking in, Klasson’s well-informed novel will leave you thinking. And isn’t that what a really good book should do?”
—Julie Ryan McGue, author of Twice a Daughter: A Search of Identity, Family, and Belonging

“Beautifully written and important, Elayne Klasson’s book The Earthquake Child will rock you in all the best ways. Nature vs Nurture comes alive in this brilliantly crafted story of an adoptive mother’s unfailing love, a young birthmother’s grief and shame, and an incredibly gifted, yet troubled son. I doubt I’ve read a more compelling book that covers so authentically the emotional ups and downs that come with the adoption of a child. Read this book. You’ll be glad you did.”
—Laura L. Engel, author of You’ll Forget This Ever Happened – Secrets, Shame, and Adoption in the 1960s

“This fine novel provides the reader with many pleasures. You’ll find well-drawn characters to care about, a suspenseful story, an emotionally-resonant depiction of the psychological stresses related to adoption, and a prose style that is clear and enjoyable to read.”
—Monica Starkman, MD, author of The End of Miracles, Professor emerita of Psychiatry, University of Michigan Medical School

“Joshua’s struggles illustrate the conundrum of nature and nature and how ill-prepared adoption triad members can be when embarking on the adoption journey. Love, loss, and genes propel Joshua to act out in unimaginable ways. Following Joshua and his mother on their journey, with all its twists and turns, keeps the reader’s rapt attention, hoping for a better future for this troubled young man. His story is thought-provoking and a page-turning read for all parents, prospective parents, and for those examining the connections which make a family.”
—Elaine R. Gordon, Ph.D., author of Mommy, Did I Grow in Your Tummy?, clinical psychologist specializing in alternative family-building and reproductive medicine

Past Praise for the author:

Praise for Love is a Rebellious Bird

2019 National Jewish Book Awards Finalist

“A touching illustration of a sixty-year relationship between a girl and boy from early childhood to old age. Over time there is a power shift from one to another as their lives intersect. From first love to last love, Love Is a Rebellious Bird by Elayne Klasson explores the manner in which some one special always holds a place in our heart. This book illustrates that our connections help us deal with the obstacles we all encounter . . . its message will resonate with readers who maybe facing challenging life decisions now; realizing we will all experience the vicissitudes of life sooner or later. This poignant novel addresses the nature of love and commitment (through a Jewish lens) and is a remarkable depiction of such.”

—Jewish Book Awards

“Klasson fills every scene she can with thought-provoking reflections on the nature of love, family, and romance. A surprisingly complex and realistic love story delicately narrated by an endearing protagonist.”

—Kirkus Reviews

“Elayne Klasson’s artistic and compassionate novel Love is a Rebellious Bird focuses on a lifelong love affair . . . an operatic, enduring, and subtle romance.”

—Foreword Reviews Clarion Rating: 5 out of 5

“A deeply touching story that moves deftly through the decades to a sweet and graceful finale.”

—Carl Alasko, Ph.D., author of Beyond Blame and Emotional Bullshit

“Love is a Rebellious Bird vividly evokes the worlds of Judith Sherman and Elliott Pine: 1950's Chicago in the Jewish neighborhood of West Rogers Park, the subsequent whiplash of the liberated 60s, marriages that fail and marriages that thrive, losses from illness and ambitions denied. Klasson shows us the seismic repercussions of a love, more unequal than unrequited, that vibrate over a lifetime. While Elliott may never fully love Judith the way she deserves, the reader certainly will.”

—Stacey Swann, author of Olympus, TX and Contributing Editor at American Short Fiction

“Elayne Klasson has written a novel that is both very real and very brave. Her character, Judith, begins the story in her seventies, looking back, but the words are not written to us. She’s writing to Elliot, a man she has loved all her life, though both of them have married others. ‘For me it was always you, Elliot.’ It’s bold for the protagonist to deliver her story to ‘you, Elliot,’ as she covers their history from teenage to old age, and it works, as we move through a life of learning, teaching, mothering, and wild passions. The last chapters are as surprising as they are tender. I was captured.”

―Gerald DiPego, author of Keeper of the City and Cheevey and Screenwriter of Message in a Bottle and Phenomenon