Endangered Species: A Novel

by Louis Bayard

"In his witty and beautifully written novels, Louis Bayard is establishing Washington D.C. as the District of Comedy."-Bob Smith, author of Openly Bob , and Way to Go Smith The Broome family is facing an uncertain future; however no one but youngest son Nick seems to notice. Driven by an inexplicable but driving certainty that they are on the brink of extinction, Nick vows to bring a child into the world by whatever means necessary. The problem? Nick is gay. The brave new world of parenting is explored as never before in Louis Bayard's new novel, which is full of the dry wit, snaking plot turns, and vivid, well-rounded characters that earned raves and fans for his first novel, Fool's Errand. Nick's quest for a surrogate mother will draw him to schizophrenics, Hispanic immigrants, body-pierced teenagers, female escorts, a God-fearing phlebotomist, an itinerant matchmaker, and an unbalanced but irrepressible young woman named Nattie, who ultimately may provide what he is seeking in the way he least expected. Alternately moving and very, very funny, Nick Broome's quest to leave a mark on the world drives straight to the heart of the evolving nature of love and family. Louis Bayard is a freelance journalist whose work has appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, Nerve.Com, Genre, Lambda Book Report, and the Washington Blade among others. He is the author of Fool's Errand, and lives in Washington, D.C.

Genres: Fiction, LGBT

265 pages, Paperback

First published April 1, 2001

About the author

A staff writer for Salon.com, Bayard has written articles and reviews for the New York Times, the Washington Post, Nerve.com, and Preservation, among others. Bayard lives in Washington, D.C.

Reviews

[Velvetink · Rating 4 out of 5]

donated to The Smith Family. 20.2.15

Not the usual thing I read, but got though this inbetween bouts of coughing last night...enjoyable & weirdly satisfying (the book not the coughing). The story follows Bloom,(correction; Broome) a single gay 30 something Washington guy and his quest to father a child and the relationship entanglements he gets himself into to accomplish the task. I think it's Bayard's first book and it had me hooked enough to read to the end and distracting enough for me not to notice I might have been rupturing my lungs. The dialogue works well, and no situation seems forced although the surrogate broker did creep me out a little. It's funny, touching and highly candid on matters of male masturbation fantasies and artifical insemination so if that's not for you don't read it. On the other hand, you can connect with this single gay guy who doesn't want to be single and doesn't want to miss the chance at fatherhood either. Like women hitting a certain age, his hormones are yelling and he has given himself one year to procreate despite his "swimmers" having only barely 50% motility. You even begin to feel affection for his dull predictable middle class family who originally gave him and his grandmother the horrors. His grandmother's last words: "Is this all there is"? give new meaning to Bloom (Broome), and he set's out to change the status quo. WhileBloom(Broome) searches for someone to carry on his genes with, his friends and family begin slowly changing along with Blooms'(Broomes') latest relationship that proves to be a turning point for them all. It's an interesting transformation. Does he get his baby?. Read it.

typo; the main character's name is Broome, not Bloom. Been looking for my copy of Ulysses - subconscious at work here.

[Robert Dunbar · Rating 3 out of 5]

A nice enough guy, Nicholas Broome, the (apparently) titular hero of Louis Bayard's Endangered Species, is obsessed with ensuring that his family tree bears fruit, but propagation for this GWM proves fraught with difficulties. Sooner or later, everybody gets rejected ... but at the sperm bank? And all the poor fellow wants to do is make a deposit. Prospective mothers, it seems, have a genetic shopping list these days -- not just hair and eye color, but salary, hobbies, SAT scores. Poor Nicholas can't even give it away, so he decides to take matters into his own hands. (Sorry.) After all, Nicholas believes he's on a mission to spawn, seeing himself as a sort of human salmon fording the rapids, but these waters have grown treacherous. Artificial insemination, surrogate mothers: birthing those babies has never been more complicated.

It's a whole new ball game.

Nicholas must learn the rules, even while his biological clock is chiming like Big Ben. Eventually, he decides merely donating seed isn't enough. He wants the resulting child to be part of his life, so he must find a woman willing to both mother and share the infant. Naturally, this leads him to (where else?) the personal ads in his local weekly newspaper. It's easy to understand Nicholas' depressed state. Comic scenes with his parents and childless siblings achieve a surreal quality, like tragic vaudeville skits. Would a baby really change everything for these people? The author quickly exhausts the humorous aspects of his main character's monomania, but the book is full of sweet, damaged souls, all of them looking for answers without really being sure what the question is. And Nicholas is right, of course. He does need to get a life.

[Dan Adams · Rating 4 out of 5]

Always a pleasure to read a story by Louis Bayard. This one - Endangered Species - was his second book published. It is the story of Nick Broome, a gay man who wants to give birth to a baby, and quite comically details Broome's first attempts at doing so by applying as a donor to sperm banks and, later, by trying to partner a child with a co-parent, and then, via a surrogate mother. Under Bayard's accurate pen, Nick and his family - a caring sister and brother, and a loving mother and father - are interesting, vivid, and ring true. And so do each of the other characters we encounter - Nick's snarky female friend, Shannon; Nattie, his first agreeable, but flawed, co-parent candidate; Nattie's brother, Joe, who becomes Nick's boyfriend but suffers from wanderlust; Lupe, the IHOP worker who because she speaks little English, isn't sure why she is meeting Nick but wants to have his baby; and then there is Lyle Kibbee, the intense and convincing freelance "surrogacy broker" who tries with all of his might to find Nick the perfect surrogate. Good book, as usual, from the mind of Louis Bayard. Highly enjoyable.

[Carycleo · Rating 5 out of 5]

I enjoyed this book so much that I stretched the reading out for days, so it wouldn't be over too quickly. Nick is a man on a mission. Longing for a child and worried about the fact that neither he nor his two siblings have produced one so far, he's given himself one year to father a child. As a single, gay man in his 30's, he finds it far from easy. By turns poignant and funny, we follow Nick through every means that he thinks of, from sperm banks to the internet, and we meet some fascinating characters along the way. This novel has much to say to any reader about family and relationships, and about dogged determination and figuring out what one truly wants. Endangered Species is a novel to savor.

[Jen · Rating 2 out of 5]

Definitely NOT a young adult book...It was entertaining, but not what I thought it was, so that hampered my enjoyment a bit.