That's My Baby

by Norma Klein

Paul Gold, an unworldly but intellectually precocious student playwright, becomes involved with an older, married woman and must find a a difficult balance between maintaining his personal convictions and feeding his growing success as a writer

Genres: Young Adult

Hardcover

First published June 8, 1988

About the author

Norma Klein was born in New York City and graduated cum laude and was a member of Phi Beta Kappa from Barnard College with a degree in Russian. She later received her master's degree in Slavic languages from Columbia University.

Ms. Klein began publishing short stories while attending Barnard and since then she had written novels for readers of all ages. The author got her ideas from everyday life and advised would-be writers to do the same -- to write about their experiences or things they really care about.

Ms. Klein died in 1989.

Reviews

[Danielle · Rating 3 out of 5]

I love so much about Norma Klein novels. They're so candid and frank. I thought it was funny that the protagonist writes a play called Just Friends, which is a major plot line of the book, and Klein herself then writes a novel with the same name. (and plot? I should reread that one.)

Paul is 18 and a senior in high school. He walks Zoe's dog. Zoe is 22 and lives in his building. They fall in love and start sleeping together. Like, every single day. Zoe is married. Both know the affair will end when Paul leaves for college, though he's kinda hoping it won't. It's no surprise whatsoever when Zoe becomes pregnant.

I'm always delighted when books about kids finishing their senior year don't end with graduation. In the last twenty or so pages, we get to see Paul over the next couple of years. Paul even meets the kid and realizes how much she looks like Zoe's husband, and Zoe does not say yes to reigniting their affair.

The final page recounts a book/movie he's studying in college where a married woman dies in childbirth after having an affair. The world is happy, celebrating the end of WWII, but the man who loved the woman is sad. Then it says something like, "Sometimes a book does it better than reality."

What? To me this reads as though Paul feels it would have been better is Zoe had died in childbirth! Though, I assume that Klein meant it as Paul is still in love with and sad about Zoe, since he hasn't met anyone else in college. I've never read such an odd ending before. It's strange to take a full paragraph at the literal end of the novel to describe in detail (the man asks the husband for a light) the plot of a book and a movie. Klein could have made the same point in her own words, and it would have been less confusing.

Maybe the book/film was the inspiration for this book and she felt she had to pay homage?

[Michael Smith · Rating 4 out of 5]

I’ve always enjoyed reading well-crafted, non-formulaic YA novels (I’m also recommending them to my grandkids these days), and Klein is always a dependable author. She was something of a groundbreaker in the 1970s, but by the late ‘80s, when this one came out, teenage culture had changed radically. (Now, with the country sliding back into intellectually repressed puritanism, maybe she’ll become a retro-groundbreaker.) Anyway, Paul Gold is a senior in an arts TAG high school in New York. He’s a talented writer who dreams of someday seeing his plays produced on Broadway, but he’s also in most ways your basic eighteen-year-old. A one-nighter with Sonya, his best female friend, which they both sort of fell into unplanned, and her recriminatory attitude afterward, lead him to write a play about the incident for production at school. (It’s all grist, folks.) But then Sonya gets together with Wolf, Paul’s best male friend, and the balancing act becomes painful. But that’s only part of it! When Paul takes a job walking the small, ancient, ugly dog belonging to married, twenty-two-year-old Zoe, a warm, conflicted, sweet young woman you can’t help but have warm feelings toward, they begin an affair that they know can’t last, and it doesn’t. But what could have been merely a late-adolescent fantasy in other hands, becomes a charming, bittersweet love story under Klein’s guidance. She knows how complicated life really is. Nice ending, too.

[Riri · Rating 2 out of 5]

I do not know why this book is "young adult", it talks about sex and well sex is sex, although it isn't like Fifty Shades kind that really describes it but still. Don't forget about cheating. The girl was said to be in a "happy" marriage... So why did she cheat?

Asidee from that... The first part of the book was ok until it got to the second half. I don't know what happened but it just went bad all of a sudden that it becomes hard for you to finish the book.

The only reason I finished this was because I borrowed the book from the library and I wanted to know the ending and I usually finish books no matter how bad they are.

[reed · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was searching out YA books about Jewish girls but not about the Holocaust. Sadly there is VERY little to choose from, but I ran across an article about Norma Klein and got some of her books out of the library. I read this one and about half of another. She's not such a great writer that I want to read all of her work but she is more than competent and her writing is really unusual for YA lit, both because her characters really are all Jewish for the most part, and because she was writing before the latest wave of conservative anti-feminist backlash, so she approaches the subjects of teenage sex, adultery, abortion, etc. from a very matter-of-fact and adult viewpoint. It's refreshing.

[Carin · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was better than I remembered! I found it very interesting that Paul never thinks to himself anything like "I can't believe I'm falling to a married woman". It just happens. It is a compelling story, with a slight twist from the usual: the married woman is actually pretty happy in her marriage. She's not unhappy and looking to get out. That was a nice touch. Particularly as it's not that uncommon. Sometimes attraction can win out over morals and ethics. I also liked a lot that Paul was an aspiring playwrite, as that's also fairly unique. And the way the ending played out was perfect. It was touching, a little painful, and honest. It's interesting when Ms. Klein writes from a male point of view. It felt authentic to me, but as a woman I might not know better. Paul's unconventional family was also a nice touch - growing up in a variety of the Brady Bunch myself, I got his feeling of always being out of place and not ever feeling solidly on the ground at home. I was a little bothered that she referred to his half siblings as step siblings, but that's a very minor quibble. I also appreciate that he went to college nearby because of Zoe - in real life that actually happens a lot. This book felt very true and faithful to reality. I believed the situation with Sonya and I even liked all the discussions of plays. All around, this was a great book.

[Michele · Rating 4 out of 5]

I thought it would be fun to read a book by an author I read in junior high and high school. I really enjoyed this. The reviewer quoted on the front cover says that this is a cross between Phillip Roth and Woody Allen. I would agree. The issues are very adult which makes it more realistic. I hate when books for high school kids act like their only issues are getting invited to prom and having annoying family members.