Wanting a Child

This hauntingly written and heartfelt collection assembled by Bialosky (The End of Desire) and Schulman (The Revisionist), who are also contributors, details the experiences of men and women who have wanted to have children but, for various reasons, found the road to parenthood paved with difficulties. Several of the essays deal with responses to infertility and miscarriage, such as Agnes Rossi's ""In Vitro."" Phillip Lopate's haunting ""The Lake of Suffering"" describes how he and his wife coped with the serious illness of their newborn daughter, and in ""The Boys,"" Sophie Cabot Black discusses the method she and her female partner used to decide on the right male donor for their child. In one of the several selections on adoption, Tama Janowitz remembers the highs and lows of traveling to China with her husband to bring home their daughter. The short stories, including Marly Swick's fictional account of a surrogate mother (""The Summer Before the Summer of Love""), strengthen this unusual anthology. (May)