Approval

Approvalis a powerful meditation on judgment, the adoption process, and fatherhood, told from a perspective rarely explored in fiction: a mans response to a couples infertility.Approvalfollows would-be parents David and Cici through a series of forays into the past as they go through the motions of applying to adopt a child. Their story builds a picture of hope, vulnerability and fear as David is put under intense and intrusive scrutiny during their battle against faceless bureaucracy.From family background and early experiences to adult relationships, he is forced to revisit uncomfortable sometimes painful episodes, in the hope of meeting the authoritys requirements.Confronting a lonely, difficult and uncertain path to family life, and raising questions about how much intervention and judgement is necessary for the state to ascertain fitness to parent,Approvalultimately invites the reader to decide.