Gay Men Having Babies in Fiction, Memoir, Movies, and TV

Today is the official pub date of Michael Lowenthal's fourth novel The Paternity Test about the tangled loyalties between a gay couple of ten years, Pat and Stu, who move from New York to Cape Cod, and their Brazillian surrogate mother, Debora, and her carpenter husband, Danny. Given Lowenthal's grace and insight in Charity Girl [Kindle], Avoidance, and The Same Embrace, the new book has to be deeper and more nuanced than the current wave of movies and tv about gay surrogacy.

Four months ago Touchstone published Hollywood fixture and Don Roos' partner Dan Bucatinsky's memoir Does This Baby Make Me Look Straight?: Confessions of a Gay Dad [Kindle]. Along with NPH, Gwyneth, Lisa, Jane, Rosie, Dan, Ayelet, and Shonda, someone named Terrence McNally also loved it, saying, “Few people make me laugh as much as Dan Bucatinsky, but I was not prepared this time to be crying between the guffaws. This is a book I will return to again and again for its humor, that's a no-brainer, but for its sly wisdom as well.”

October 12 is the NYC release of Jonathan Lisecki's low budget comedy about a gay man and straight woman having a child together, Gayby. It's based on his 2010 short shown at more than 100 film festivals. This year the feature has screened at fests in LA, SF, Seattle, Tokyo, Athens, Nova Scotia, Kansas City, Memphis, Louisiana, North Carolina, Boston, and Houston, among others. Last week it won the audience award in Oslo.

Meanwhile, Ryan Murphy's surrogacy sitcom The New Normal has been steadily losing viewers week by week. Click now to watch the complete episodes, which will only be free until mid to late October. Facing the erosion of his series, Ryan yesterday announced that episode 10 will guest star Marlo Thomas and the Halloween episode will reference Honey Boo Boo.