Debut ‘Surrogate’ is a mystery, a family story and a damn trip – Twin Cities
I could feel him looking at me. I did not know where to start. While I was holding her, he had decided it was my turn and he had taken the baby out of my arms and given her to Cally. He had touched Cally’s shoulder. And I did not like the way he had looked at her; it was as if she was the mother, not me. As if he said Good job. The simple fact was that he had had a child with this woman, not with me, and I should be happy about that.
Is Toni Halleen’s debut novel, “The Surrogate”, a mystery, a thriller, a family story? It’s all of the above, and it’s a hell of a trip.
It begins with a young woman named Cally picking up her day-old baby, throwing the baby to her ex-boyfriend, who is standing down in the snow, and then jumping out of the hospital window. They leave in the cold winter night on their way north to a cabin where she, Cally says, just wants a few more days with her baby before leaving her with her parents, Ruth and Hal, for whom she was a surrogate.
Her ex is Digger, with whom she has had an on-and-off relationship for years. He is amazed at all this venture and wonders why he answered the call late at night from his ex-girlfriend, whom he had not seen for several months, and asked him to pick her up at the hospital. No mention of a baby.
Hal and Ruth are newlyweds who decided to hire a surrogate because Ruth desperately wants a baby. Hal has two teenage sons from a previous marriage and is not so eager to start babysitting again, but he wants his wife to be happy.
The story is told from the four characters’ points of view, and it’s hard to say who to root for, as Hal / Ruth and Cally are fighting over the baby. Hal is a quiet, good-natured lawyer; Ruth is the hardest character to love. She is a 40-year-old journalist and almost suffocates Cally during pregnancy, taking the young woman to birth classes, watching what she eats and monitoring her husband as he writes the legal contract. Later we are told that he decided not to impose a few important restrictions.
The first third of the novel seems predictable: Will Cally escape? But then the story takes an abrupt turn, as the baby is no longer in the cabin where Cally and Digger are staying, and Cally does not know where she is.
Soon, Hal and Ruth, as well as Cally, are looking for the newborn. Ruth, a Type-A, is almost crazy with fear, accusing her husband of not writing the adoption papers carefully enough and trying to interview as many people in the hospital about safety as she has been asked to leave.
While the reader feels sympathy for Cally, Ruth is the one who is most tireless, but also the character whose emotions are closest to the surface. The baby is legally her daughter, but hospital staff and others treat her (so she thinks) as if something is wrong with her because she is using a surrogate. Because the insemination used Cally’s eggs and throat semen, Ruth has no biological connection to the baby, leaving her feeling outside.
As more is revealed about each character, the reader’s sympathies go back and forth – except for Digger, who calls the child “the bundle” and the “freak”. But he too has his reasons.
There’s a slightly contrived but intriguing confrontation in the hospital, and it would be a spoiler to reveal what’s going on.
It is clear from comments on Goodreads and other sites that this is a controversial book that readers have strong feelings for based on their belief in surrogacy and motherhood.
Halleen, who lives in Minneapolis, took a law degree from the University of Minnesota and won the Mentor Award in fiction from The Loft. Her writing has appeared in literary journals.
The author will introduce his novel at. 7pm Monday, Nov. 1 at Magers & Quinn, 3038 Hennepin Ave. S., Mpls. Registration required at: eventbrite.com/e/toni-halleen-presents-the-surrogate-registration-183793811237. Waiting list only.
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