Conrad Tao, another American-born prodigy frequently identified as Chinese, is older than Marc Yu and younger than Kit Armstrong. His scientist parents emigrated from China in the early 1980s to do graduate study at Princeton. When the Tiananmen Square massacre occurred in 1989, shortly after their daughter was born, they decided to stay in the United States a little longer. Had they gone back, they would have had to conform to the one-child rule; "Conrad is a product of the fact that we stayed," his mother, Mingfang Ting, explained. She became a research scientist, creating predictive computer models of climate change at the University of Illinois, and his father, Sam Tao, worked as an engineer at Alcatel-Lucent. Both were focused on accomplishment, but neither of them on art. "Growing up during the Cultural Revolution, we sang patriotic songs, and that's all the music we had," Mingfang said. She and Sam perceived music as a luxury, one they wanted to offer their children. When Conrad was eighteen months old, a family friend set him on the piano bench and began playing; Conrad kept pushing him aside and finishing the tunes. The friend said, "If you can't make a musician out of this child, it's your fault." Conrad played so incessantly that his parents worried he might damage his fingers, and the teacher advised them to lock the piano.

Mingfang was not intimidated by her son's talent, but she was concerned about the ramifications of being called a prodigy and made him try other skills he couldn't master immediately. "I can't take credit for his talent," she said, "but I can take credit for his being humble." As his music progressed, she became concerned that he was missing the best opportunities to develop in his art. "A prodigy in Champaign, Illinois, might be not a prodigy somewhere else," she said. So when Conrad was nearly five, his mother took a sabbatical, and the family moved to Chicago; a year later, they moved again, to New York, where Conrad was accepted as a student by Veda Kaplinsky at Juilliard. The piano went into its own small, soundproof room. "People say he doesn't have the concert-hall feeling, but it's good if we can enjoy our life, too," Mingfang said.

They encouraged Conrad to forgo competitions "because they are sad," his mother said. "If you win, you feel sorry for your friends who lost, and if you lose, you feel sorry for yourself." Conrad explained it differently, though with a similar sensitivity to others: "I already have quite a few concerts to play. Many others don't, and if I enter, I'm taking the chance to perform away from them." Mingfang admits that theirs is not the typical Chinese attitude. "If I had stayed in China, I might have wanted my son in every competition, and I might have given him less love if he failed. But I've been Americanized. Now I believe that if you don't have calm in your heart, you can't really produce beauty." In her own view, Mingfang is a hybrid mother, too open-minded for the Chinese standard and too firm for the American model. Conrad is ambivalent. "I don't want to push the Asian label away because that feels really self-hating to me," he said. "But being classified as a Chinese-American child-prodigy pianist, that's already too many labels. My parents are actually much more appreciative of freedom than some Americans I know, because they didn't grow up with that. They're more appreciative of music because they didn't grow up with that. And I'm the beneficiary." sad," his mother said. "If you win, you feel sorry for your friends who lost, and if you lose, you feel sorry for yourself." Conrad explained it differently, though with a similar sensitivity to others: "I already have quite a few concerts to play. Many others don't, and if I enter, I'm taking the chance to perform away from them." Mingfang admits that theirs is not the typical Chinese attitude. "If I had stayed in China, I might have wanted my son in every competition, and I might have given him less love if he failed. But I've been Americanized. Now I believe that if you don't have calm in your heart, you can't really produce beauty." In her own view, Mingfang is a hybrid mother, too open-minded for the Chinese standard and too firm for the American model. Conrad is ambivalent. "I don't want to push the Asian label away because that feels really self-hating to me," he said. "But being classified as a Chinese-American child-prodigy pianist, that's already too many labels. My parents are actually much more appreciative of freedom than some Americans I know, because they didn't grow up with that. They're more appreciative of music because they didn't grow up with that. And I'm the beneficiary."

Conrad is doing independent study because his concert schedule became too complicated for regular school. He concedes that he doesn't have much of a social life, but school wasn't so great, either. "Everyone thought I was a smart-ass, and I can't dispute that," he said. Veda Kaplinsky worried that if he pursued a liberal-arts education, he might lose focus for his music, but Mingfang encouraged him to enroll at Columbia while continuing his studies at Juilliard. "Music is like the climate-it's a huge system with an infinite number of variables," Mingfang told me. "Conrad's work is very much like mine; it's about figuring out structures to make sense of what appears to be chaos."

One's own intelligence has novelty value when it is newly awakened, and at fifteen, Conrad was in that particular innocence. He said, "I think that the world has just as much to teach me as Veda, and so do people I don't know. Books have a lot to teach me. Films have a lot to teach me. Art, life, science, math, anything has a lot to offer. I'm a sponge. We live in a postmodern era, where kids hear every style of music and want to play it all at the same time while text messaging. I'm one of those kids." New audiences, he believes, must be cultivated. "I've always mourned the fact that indie rockers are more receptive to experimentation than the classical community is." He sighed. "My views on music change every week. I'm a teenager, prone to hormonal imbalances. I try to expose myself to as much as I can. Being a politician means that you can take any argument and turn it to your favor. I can't do that; I'm an artist, and I can only argue my point of view."

The gap between classical and popular music keeps widening, and the first approach to that problem has been for classical composers to try to move into that gap with music that speaks to both audiences. "There's always been a kind of DMZ between the pretentiousness of one and the amateurishness of the other," Justin Davidson said, "but no matter how aesthetics may have merged, you're dealing with a capitalist, commercial world on the one hand, and a not-for-profit world on the other. It's hard for two such different economic models to meet."

Fearful that their language appears to be dying and eager for widespread acclaim and the financial rewards that come with it, composers and performers have entered a mainstream they might once have disdained. Lang Lang appears in popular ads; Joshua Bell plays crossover music from movie themes to bluegrass; Conrad Tao sees part of his job as producing an audience for his music. Young composer-performers such as Christian Sands, Nico Muhly, and Gabriel Kahane strive for a music of wide appeal that soft-pedals the differences between classical and pop. They are fighting to save their own identity from erasure.

Christian Sands grew up on gospel, jazz, and pop. He won first place in the church talent show when he was three, after only a year of piano lessons; at four, he won a local composer's award in New Haven, Connecticut. His father, Sylvester, worked a night shift at Cargill, so Chris was at home nights with his mother, Stephanie. "Music made me feel safe, so music was the way that he and I coped with having to be strong," she said. When Chris started kindergarten, the teacher told Stephanie that her son was incapable of sitting still and seemed to be on some other planet. Stephanie said, "He's not on another planet; he's just composing music in his head. He'll stop squirming if you let him play a lullaby or something for the other kids before naptime." Chris's room was next to his parents', and after he went to bed, when it was too late to play the piano, they would hear the clicking of his fingernails on the desk, as if it were a keyboard.

From the outset, Chris would improvise. "He could mix a little thing from Chopin right in the middle of his Bach," Sylvester said. When Chris was seven, his teacher said he should switch to a jazz teacher. "I could make things up, and nobody would say, 'Don't do that,'" Chris recalled. "I used to think my hands had their own brains. I call them 'the little people,' because each finger just does a different thing when it wants to do it."

Chris's teacher arranged a gig for him at Sprague Hall, the large concert venue at Yale. "It was a trio," Chris said. "The bass player is sixty-five, the drummer is maybe fifty-eight, and I'm nine, and I'm the leader. I didn't pay attention to the audience. It's almost, like, when you're a child and you're playing with a toy, and your parents have company; you don't even care if they're in the same room with you; you're just making your train go or finishing up your tower of blocks. The piano was my toy, and I was in my own world that I created." Chris received a standing ovation. His parents found him backstage, lying on the floor in his tuxedo and reading a book. sixty-five, the drummer is maybe fifty-eight, and I'm nine, and I'm the leader. I didn't pay attention to the audience. It's almost, like, when you're a child and you're playing with a toy, and your parents have company; you don't even care if they're in the same room with you; you're just making your train go or finishing up your tower of blocks. The piano was my toy, and I was in my own world that I created." Chris received a standing ovation. His parents found him backstage, lying on the floor in his tuxedo and reading a book.

The invitations started to pour in. By the time he was eleven, Chris's music was airing on the radio, and he was selling homemade CDs. The next year, he played a special concert for all fifteen thousand sixth graders in the New Haven school district. He was asked to entertain at a cocktail party at Skull and Bones, a Yale secret society. One of the guests was Dave Brubeck's physician, who subsequently arranged for Chris to take lessons from Brubeck. At fifteen, Chris met Dr. Billy Taylor, who produced Chris's first major recording. In high school, Chris was playing as many as four gigs a week.

Chris's modesty slyly invites a little awe. He's handsome and affable and likes to pretend that even hard work is easy. When a friend complained that Chris was never available for socializing, he replied, "You are my friend, but music is my love, and it will always come first." Stephanie said, "He has to isolate himself, even from us. That could be painful. He's always been the one steering the boat, and we're just making sure it's not sinking." Sylvester said, "We told him, 'Pray before you play, and use your gift for the people, not for yourself.'" Stephanie described watching talk shows about young celebrities and trying to extrapolate how to be a parent to Chris. "I don't know if I ever understood the giftedness, but I understood that if you don't give him the piano, you might as well just not give him any air." All the same, his parents didn't want him to forfeit the usual pleasures of youth. During the breaks of his late-night concerts, they'd sneak out the stage door to play tag and roughhouse.

In 2006, at seventeen, Chris was invited to perform at the Grammy Awards for the legendary jazz pianist Oscar Peterson. He had been warned in advance that Peterson would be onstage in a wheelchair. Chris began to play Peterson's tune "Kelly's Blues." "Right in the middle of my second chorus, I hear some applause, and I'm thinking it's for me," Chris said, "and all of a sudden I heard a chord and I thought, 'Wait, I'm not playing that chord,' and I looked up." Peterson had pulled himself out of his wheelchair and made it over to the other piano onstage, and they began something halfway between a pianistic dialogue and a duel that ended the show exultantly.

Chris went on to the Manhattan School of Music, where, Sylvester said, he learned the names for what he was already doing. When I asked his parents what role each played in the development of his musical sensibility, Sylvester took credit for certain harmonies he favors, and Stephanie said she had shown him how to shape a story. When I visited the Sands family at home, Chris was twenty-one, and in the middle of writing an opera, half jazz, half classical, loosely based on his romance with a mezzo-soprano from Dubai. "Her story's as weird as mine," he said. "So my opera's about my doing jazz when everyone else was doing sports, and her doing opera when everyone else was doing shopping and Islam." He laughed. "Do I want to make operatic music, or do I want to do cutthroat, in-your-face jazz, or to be Afro-Cuban, or to use this new Latin style? From the dawn of time, man put sticks over here, berries over here. It's been like that forever, so everything is categorized, and that's why there's so many genres and subcategories. My music is a new beast, and it's untamed, and it's running rampant through the streets of New York."

Music education has been eliminated at most public schools, but people are not merely ignorant about classical music; they are often educated away from it. Paul Potts, pudgy and morose, sang Puccini's "Nessun dorma" on Britain's Got Talent Britain's Got Talent in 2007 and received a staggering ovation; the YouTube clip of his performance has had nearly a hundred million views. His fans responded to the beauty of Puccini's music despite Potts's distinctly amateur, if poignant, performance. The same thing happened a few years later when eight-year-old Jackie Evancho sang Puccini's "O mio babbino caro" on a similar American program. Admittedly, Puccini was a populist; nonetheless, these phenomena suggest that many people who never contemplate listening to classical music are capable of being blown away by it. in 2007 and received a staggering ovation; the YouTube clip of his performance has had nearly a hundred million views. His fans responded to the beauty of Puccini's music despite Potts's distinctly amateur, if poignant, performance. The same thing happened a few years later when eight-year-old Jackie Evancho sang Puccini's "O mio babbino caro" on a similar American program. Admittedly, Puccini was a populist; nonetheless, these phenomena suggest that many people who never contemplate listening to classical music are capable of being blown away by it.

Paradoxically, as general education about classical music is vanishing, the education of actual musicians remains ossified. "Conservatories, essentially, haven't changed since the Reign of Terror," Robert Sirota said. "You need iconoclasts who are willing to reexamine the repertoire, to reexamine what a concert is, to reexamine how people hear and listen."

Bunny Harvey and Frank Muhly married by default. Bunny's ex-boyfriend had been kicked out of Brown and asked his square buddy Frank to look after her. Bunny, who worked part-time as a go-go dancer, was in a relationship with a woman. "But something perverse in me decided to take him on as a project," she said, "and it backfired, because I fell in love." Frank dropped out of graduate school and has led a life untouched by career ambition, working on occasional films and other freelance projects. In 1974, Bunny won the Rome Prize in painting and they moved to Italy for two years. because I fell in love." Frank dropped out of graduate school and has led a life untouched by career ambition, working on occasional films and other freelance projects. In 1974, Bunny won the Rome Prize in painting and they moved to Italy for two years.

When they returned home, she and Frank decided to have a child. "I didn't know what it took to be a parent," she said. "Now I think it's like art: you have the material and you deal with it in the most creative and loving way you can." Nico Muhly was born in Vermont; at nine months, he was mimicking bird sounds and soon identified a red-tailed hawk by its cry. During the winters, the family was based in Providence, where one of Nico's fourth-grade classmates sang in a choir. One day he invited Nico to come along. In Elizabethan choral music, Nico found himself immediately at home. "Downtown Providence was dead," he said. "Right in the middle of it was this old, grand High Anglican church, run by a bizarre, incomprehensible man, who programmed the most interesting music." A few months later, Bunny took Nico to Trinity Church in Boston, and the music director asked Nico whether he liked the organ; Nico sat down and played a Bach prelude and fugue from memory. Bunny burst into tears. "How could he even reach the pedals?" she said. "I knew he'd been singing, but I had no idea he'd learned the organ. This amazing thing had been hidden from me." Later that day, at a cafe in Harvard Square, Nico began composing a kyrie on a paper napkin. He had suddenly figured out what mattered to him.

"It was like birdsong-something triggers it and it comes out fullblown," Frank said. Bunny started bringing home CDs and scores from the Wellesley library, and Nico became seriously obsessed. "One day it was Messiaen," he said. "The next, I was like, 'I want to know everything about the marimba.' Nothing from the nineteenth century, ever. Early, early, modern, modern. That music just made me so insane and happy, like it was a narcotic."

Bunny returned to the American Academy in Rome as a guest artist when Nico was twelve. Nico attended Italian public school. A composer's studio was free at the academy, and one of the scholars agreed to take Nico as a piano student. "At home, he'd been an unusual child in a normal situation, but there, everybody was peculiar, and he could somehow be a normal child in this unusual situation," Bunny said. Nico said, "The whole thing felt very enchanted. Everyone humored me as much as they could stand to. And I became a musician."

Back in Providence, Nico directed all his high school musicals, inserting bits of Stravinsky and ABBA into Bye Bye Birdie Bye Bye Birdie. Meanwhile, the financial strains at home were considerable. Nico began to develop OCD with a strong depressive undercurrent. When he was fourteen, he won a place at Tanglewood's summer music program, where he met young composers, many of them students in prestigious programs: for the first time, he was immersed in a completely musical environment. While Nico lacked their training, he had other experience that made him feel their equal. "I was worldly. I could book a train ticket to Naples. A lot of kids were on a very tight rein; their parents in Korea would call the dorm twice a day." Nico went on to enroll in both Columbia, for a double major in English and Arabic, and Juilliard. "I entered a manic fugue," he said. "I had all the self-destructive behavior that you would expect, except it was never going out and fucking guys in the park; it was writing music. I would get up in the middle of the night and hide, turn the monitor brightness to low. It felt like secret eating or something. Then I realized that I could stop obsessing if I drank too much. Which is the worst. So I went to this ridiculous shrink and sorted myself out." OCD with a strong depressive undercurrent. When he was fourteen, he won a place at Tanglewood's summer music program, where he met young composers, many of them students in prestigious programs: for the first time, he was immersed in a completely musical environment. While Nico lacked their training, he had other experience that made him feel their equal. "I was worldly. I could book a train ticket to Naples. A lot of kids were on a very tight rein; their parents in Korea would call the dorm twice a day." Nico went on to enroll in both Columbia, for a double major in English and Arabic, and Juilliard. "I entered a manic fugue," he said. "I had all the self-destructive behavior that you would expect, except it was never going out and fucking guys in the park; it was writing music. I would get up in the middle of the night and hide, turn the monitor brightness to low. It felt like secret eating or something. Then I realized that I could stop obsessing if I drank too much. Which is the worst. So I went to this ridiculous shrink and sorted myself out."

Nico is aural and Bunny is visual, but they share the language of food. Bunny is a spectacular chef who grows her own vegetables and can slaughter and dress animals; shortly after I met Nico, he sent me a favorite photo of her holding half a pig carcass. Her French mother was an impeccable housekeeper who owned two duck presses and candied her own violets; when Nico moved into a Columbia dorm, his grandmother sent him a truffle mandolin. Nico claims that he didn't know you could buy mayonnaise in a store until he went to college. "I think I'm most proud of the fact that he likes that about me," Bunny said. "I always hoped he would find happiness in something. Music is that. But I've given him a sense of playfulness and security about making things and making mistakes and just playing in the kitchen, and it's good for him and his music." They resolve their occasional rifts by e-mailing about food, Nico said. "She'll write me twenty paragraphs about her Swiss chard, and it's all okay again."

You can feel in everything Bunny says an almost fanatical struggle for honesty, while Nico is a fabulist for whom truth is an unshiny thing. They like and grate on each other accordingly, but share a commitment to process. "Inside the music, even if you can't hear it, there's a little machine that does the thing it's meant to do," Nico said. "Some pieces, that's incredibly laid bare. Other pieces, it's buried, even erased." His second album, Mothertongue, Mothertongue, includes a simple, pretty melody. "Even though it's a folk song, there's this huge piece of math that I figured out, structured my piece around, and then completely forgot about. There's a commitment to a subnarrative of creation in everything." includes a simple, pretty melody. "Even though it's a folk song, there's this huge piece of math that I figured out, structured my piece around, and then completely forgot about. There's a commitment to a subnarrative of creation in everything."

Nico has been commissioned to do ballet for American Ballet Theatre, an opera for the Metropolitan, arrangements for Bjork. Some critics feel his music is too seductive. The composer John Adams, who has been an important influence on him, said, "I am not sure it is a good thing for someone so young to be so concerned with attractiveness of sound." In Nico's view, the idea that brilliance cannot be lovely is a vestige of the musical brutalism of post-tonality. "There exists a lingua franca of modern classical music that is indiscriminately ugly," he said. " an opera for the Metropolitan, arrangements for Bjork. Some critics feel his music is too seductive. The composer John Adams, who has been an important influence on him, said, "I am not sure it is a good thing for someone so young to be so concerned with attractiveness of sound." In Nico's view, the idea that brilliance cannot be lovely is a vestige of the musical brutalism of post-tonality. "There exists a lingua franca of modern classical music that is indiscriminately ugly," he said. "Speaks Volumes is very pretty on purpose, just to say you can do this and still have it be meaningful and have emotional content. If there is emotional depth to my stuff, it is from repetitions lulling you into a sense of security and then taking it away, a perversion of what you expect; or something being so pretty and saccharine that you wonder if it's witch's candy." is very pretty on purpose, just to say you can do this and still have it be meaningful and have emotional content. If there is emotional depth to my stuff, it is from repetitions lulling you into a sense of security and then taking it away, a perversion of what you expect; or something being so pretty and saccharine that you wonder if it's witch's candy."

Nico usually has two computers on and can compose while playing Scrabble and writing e-mail. "I have no ambition," he said. "I only have obsession. There's never a forward motion to it." He acknowledged that people conflate his exuberance with not yet having found a unique voice. "The whole conversation is made so much easier if you just confess to what you lifted. So if they say my work is derivative, I'm, like, 'I'll show you exactly the bar I'm copying from.'" Yet he is ambivalent about the role of language in describing music. "I know people who will not shut up about the nature of art. You're like, 'But your music's bad to listen to.' If you go to a concert, you shouldn't struggle to understand it. Honestly, I think part of it is, I'm not an asshole. I want to give people pleasure. Music is a food. You have to consume it. I love the phrase preferable to silence preferable to silence. Is this piece of music preferable to silence? We're in the business of art, but we're also in the business of entertainment, and spiritual and emotional nourishment. You have to carry that with you."

Parenting a prodigy entails being overshadowed, and being overshadowed comes more readily to some other parents than it does to Bunny Harvey. I did not ever feel that she begrudged Nico his gifts or success; she is obviously proud and delighted. But his success throws into sharp relief the shortcomings of an artistic vocation curtailed by the need to finance her son's life. It's a classic feminist bind: she could have had a richer career if she hadn't been a mother, and might have been a better mother if she hadn't had a career. Nico feels guilty, and therefore angry, about her having sacrificed for him, and she feels eclipsed by his independence. She intended to be a painter who had a child and ended up as a mother who also paints. Nico has carried the burden of her disappointment. They enact a kind of protracted Liebestod Liebestod in which Nico has to keep murdering his mother to become her finest in which Nico has to keep murdering his mother to become her finest work of art. "I can't listen anymore to how she sacrificed her ability to be an artist so that I could be one," he said. "It sucks. Conversely, her joy in cooking has completely transferred. It is central to the way I think about everything." Bunny stands at a slight remove from Nico's triumphs. "People say, 'Congratulations, Nico is such a success,'" she said. "I didn't do any of it. But the task that Frank and I should be congratulated for is that he's a person who knows how to be happy. He chooses a controlled melancholy, but he has alternatives." work of art. "I can't listen anymore to how she sacrificed her ability to be an artist so that I could be one," he said. "It sucks. Conversely, her joy in cooking has completely transferred. It is central to the way I think about everything." Bunny stands at a slight remove from Nico's triumphs. "People say, 'Congratulations, Nico is such a success,'" she said. "I didn't do any of it. But the task that Frank and I should be congratulated for is that he's a person who knows how to be happy. He chooses a controlled melancholy, but he has alternatives."

Nico is generous with his personal biography, but fiercely protective of his soul. It's an ostentation of privacy. "In early English church music, there are many screens between you and the heart of the matter," Nico said. "With Benjamin Britten's music, even if it's really exuberant, there's always this kind of obliqueness. But you can see the beating heart, the relic." The popular line on Nico Muhly is that he appears joyful but is actually sorrowful-that the beating heart is sad and the screens in front of it are lovely. That reduces him terribly. He has integrated the emotional spectrum so we can hear joy and sorrow both at once, but he never averages them. You may reach into his joy and pull out a surprising handful of sorrow, but when you examine that sorrow, you find it suffused with particles of joy.

Correcting a bias against genius is a social responsibility in part because most accomplishments are contingent on a social context: in some ways, this is the ultimate horizontal identity. A man with a natural aptitude for skiing who is born into poverty in Guatemala will most likely never discover it; someone whose primary talent is as a computer programmer would not have gone far in the fifteenth century. How would Leonardo have busied himself if he'd been born an Inuit? Would Galileo have advanced string theory if he'd been around in the 1990s? Ideally, a genius should have not only the necessary tools and conditions to realize his gifts, but also a receptive society of peers and admirers. As Alfred Kroeber noted in the 1940s, genius sparks genius. "If I have seen further," Sir Isaac Newton acknowledged, "it is by standing on ye shoulders of Giants." Like sainthood, genius sainthood, genius is a label that cannot properly be affixed until considerable time and a few miracles have ensued. We help the disabled in a quest to make a more humane and better world; we might approach brilliance in the same spirit. Pity impedes the dignity of disabled people; resentment is a parallel obstacle for people with enormous talent. The pity and the resentment alike are manifestations of our fear of people who are radically different. is a label that cannot properly be affixed until considerable time and a few miracles have ensued. We help the disabled in a quest to make a more humane and better world; we might approach brilliance in the same spirit. Pity impedes the dignity of disabled people; resentment is a parallel obstacle for people with enormous talent. The pity and the resentment alike are manifestations of our fear of people who are radically different.

Juilliard president Joseph Polisi observed that devotion to classical music is predicated on "an acquired way of listening." As American pop culture became a global juggernaut in the late twentieth century, and multiculturalism became the key word on nonprofit grant applications, the perceived elitism of classical and experimental music eroded its audience at an alarming rate. It has been fashionable to dismiss classical and experimental music as exclusionary, which is a semantic argument. No one prevents the nonelite from entering classical music's hallowed halls, but such music is an acquired taste based largely on European aristocratic and liturgical traditions, and more affluent people are more likely to be comfortable and familiar with those traditions. The profound question is whether it is worth the effort. Lucretius defined the sublime as the art of exchanging easier for more difficult pleasures, and almost two thousand years later, Schopenhauer proclaimed that the opposite of suffering is boredom. Classical music, which may look dull to the uninitiated, contains complexities that can make it electrifying for those who study it. With a myriad of perceived flaws, people have learned to find meaning in difficulty, and while the challenges of deafness or Down syndrome may overshadow the rigors of learning to like Prokofiev, the quest for meaning via exertion is not altogether dissimilar. In both cases, earned pleasures supersede passive ones. culture became a global juggernaut in the late twentieth century, and multiculturalism became the key word on nonprofit grant applications, the perceived elitism of classical and experimental music eroded its audience at an alarming rate. It has been fashionable to dismiss classical and experimental music as exclusionary, which is a semantic argument. No one prevents the nonelite from entering classical music's hallowed halls, but such music is an acquired taste based largely on European aristocratic and liturgical traditions, and more affluent people are more likely to be comfortable and familiar with those traditions. The profound question is whether it is worth the effort. Lucretius defined the sublime as the art of exchanging easier for more difficult pleasures, and almost two thousand years later, Schopenhauer proclaimed that the opposite of suffering is boredom. Classical music, which may look dull to the uninitiated, contains complexities that can make it electrifying for those who study it. With a myriad of perceived flaws, people have learned to find meaning in difficulty, and while the challenges of deafness or Down syndrome may overshadow the rigors of learning to like Prokofiev, the quest for meaning via exertion is not altogether dissimilar. In both cases, earned pleasures supersede passive ones.

Better services for people with disabilities and disadvantages allow them to function better and thereby pay for themselves manifold. Educating the gifted is likewise in the public interest. If we credit scientific and cultural advances to this identity group, refusing them acknowledgment and support is costly to the population at large. We live in an anti-intellectual society in which people of extraordinary achievement are as likely to be considered freaks as to be lauded as heroes. Margaret Mead observed in 1954, "There is in America today an appalling waste of first-rate talents. Neither teachers, the parents of other children, nor the child's peers will tolerate the wunderkind." Voters want the president to be someone with whom they would feel comfortable having a beer rather than a singular leader with attributes they lack. Celebrities' talent is minimized soon after it has brought them to prominence. This phenomenon, which serves no useful end, is part of what the social critic Rhonda Garelick has called the "crisis in admiration."

I was struck by how many former prodigies who were critical of their own upbringings found themselves struggling with how to raise their own talented children. Candy Bawcombe's daughter, almost sixteen when I interviewed Candy, has perfect pitch, plays the piano, and studies voice. "When Katie first started piano, at three, I wanted to be extremely regimented," Candy said. "'It has to be three thirty every day, and we're going to do it this way.' It caused tremendous friction. I had to just let all of that go." I wondered why. Candy, who had been careful not to criticize her own mother, answered, "Because I didn't want her to blame me, someday, for a life that she didn't want." Nic Hodges has found himself similarly conflicted. "It would be very ungrateful to say that being given piano lessons at six is really pressure," he said. "I'm a musician, which wouldn't have happened if my mother hadn't been the way she was. I can't imagine being or even wanting to be anyone or anything else." Now he finds himself facing the quandaries of parenthood. "If you invest your whole life in a family business, you want your children to carry on investing in it," Nic said. "You want them to be artists who know everything you know and can benefit from everything that you've experienced. All parents want that, and it never works." not to criticize her own mother, answered, "Because I didn't want her to blame me, someday, for a life that she didn't want." Nic Hodges has found himself similarly conflicted. "It would be very ungrateful to say that being given piano lessons at six is really pressure," he said. "I'm a musician, which wouldn't have happened if my mother hadn't been the way she was. I can't imagine being or even wanting to be anyone or anything else." Now he finds himself facing the quandaries of parenthood. "If you invest your whole life in a family business, you want your children to carry on investing in it," Nic said. "You want them to be artists who know everything you know and can benefit from everything that you've experienced. All parents want that, and it never works."

Jeffrey Kahane's father grew up in immigrant poverty, nine people living in two rooms; he became a highly regarded psychologist and was determined that his son traverse a similar distance. Jeffrey was frequently expected to perform at home: "I found real solace and joy in the piano, but it was tainted. I didn't want my love for music to be sucked up to feed my father's incredible need." Jeffrey met a girl named Martha at summer camp when they were ten; they wrote long letters, promising to marry young and have two kids-and they did. Martha was a music major at Berkeley and eventually became a psychotherapist; Jeffrey became a widely esteemed pianist and conductor.

Their son, Gabriel, was born in 1981. Martha noticed that he sang completely in tune at two; at four he asked her, "Do you hear the jazzy sound that train is making?" His talent, however, was not nourished with discipline, and his violin teacher eventually said there was no point going on. "My mom was the disciplinarian, and my dad, who was performing and gone a lot, stayed very much removed from my musical upbringing," Gabriel recalled. "They both had the right approach, and they both had the wrong approach."

Gabriel's musical influences were varied. He listened to rap CDs by Dr. Dre and Cypress Hill and House of Pain, but he also loved his parents' music: Paul Simon's Graceland, Graceland, Joni Mitchell's Joni Mitchell's Blue, Blue, the Beatles. He took up jazz piano, sang in a choir, became involved in musical theater. When he wanted to learn something, he learned it-"the speed with which he learned to play the piano in his teen years was mind-boggling," Martha said-but schoolwork didn't hold Gabriel's interest, which worried Martha constantly and worried Jeffrey not at all. "I thought he should do his homework," Martha said. "Jeff didn't really believe in the educational system. I remember Jeff said to me, 'Gabe is a huge talent.' I sort of got it, but I didn't get it like Jeff did." the Beatles. He took up jazz piano, sang in a choir, became involved in musical theater. When he wanted to learn something, he learned it-"the speed with which he learned to play the piano in his teen years was mind-boggling," Martha said-but schoolwork didn't hold Gabriel's interest, which worried Martha constantly and worried Jeffrey not at all. "I thought he should do his homework," Martha said. "Jeff didn't really believe in the educational system. I remember Jeff said to me, 'Gabe is a huge talent.' I sort of got it, but I didn't get it like Jeff did."

Gabriel flunked out of high school. "It was mortifying to have this brilliant kid not graduate," Martha said. "Does the fact that I felt that make me a pushy parent?" Gabriel dropped in at the New England Conservatory of Music, took an ear-training test, and was accepted immediately; by the end of a year, though, he found it parochial. He was dating a young woman who went to Brown; he applied there and was accepted. "My hubris was helpful," he said. "I wrote some persuasive essay about why I was a fuckup at school." At Brown, he became attached to the idea of accomplishing something that would outlive him. "Being a creative rather than an interpretive artist was a way of dealing with the death drive," he said. He began composing, and his first musical won a prize from the Kennedy Center. brilliant kid not graduate," Martha said. "Does the fact that I felt that make me a pushy parent?" Gabriel dropped in at the New England Conservatory of Music, took an ear-training test, and was accepted immediately; by the end of a year, though, he found it parochial. He was dating a young woman who went to Brown; he applied there and was accepted. "My hubris was helpful," he said. "I wrote some persuasive essay about why I was a fuckup at school." At Brown, he became attached to the idea of accomplishing something that would outlive him. "Being a creative rather than an interpretive artist was a way of dealing with the death drive," he said. He began composing, and his first musical won a prize from the Kennedy Center.

When Gabriel graduated, he moved to New York and began what would become the Craigslistlieder, Craigslistlieder, a song cycle that took online personal ads as a libretto, which he premiered in 2006. He would perform the songs "in a dirty bar on a banged-up piano for a bunch of hipster kids from Brooklyn who knew nothing about classical music," he said, "and they would go crazy." But his work also appealed to classical musicians. In 2007, Natasha Paremski commissioned his first sonata. In 2008, he released an eponymous album and received a commission from the Los Angeles Philharmonic. I attended Gabriel's debut concert with Jazz at Lincoln Center. Even when the work was vaguely classical in mood and even when it was performed with a dozen other musicians, his centrality to it made it feel incredibly intimate. a song cycle that took online personal ads as a libretto, which he premiered in 2006. He would perform the songs "in a dirty bar on a banged-up piano for a bunch of hipster kids from Brooklyn who knew nothing about classical music," he said, "and they would go crazy." But his work also appealed to classical musicians. In 2007, Natasha Paremski commissioned his first sonata. In 2008, he released an eponymous album and received a commission from the Los Angeles Philharmonic. I attended Gabriel's debut concert with Jazz at Lincoln Center. Even when the work was vaguely classical in mood and even when it was performed with a dozen other musicians, his centrality to it made it feel incredibly intimate.

He told me that he had to write his music to his own strengths because there was so much he couldn't do. I asked whether he regretted those gaps in his musical education. He said, "In every instance that I have witnessed someone whose childhood involved the push, there's arrested development, or there's a poisoned relationship to the art, and I just don't think it's worth it. My father and I have a deeply unambivalent relationship-and if there's any way in which I continue to try to be like him, it's in his appetite for knowledge as the basis and the foundation of why we do what we do."

His father wanted more than anything else not to replicate with his prodigious son the relationship he'd had with his own controlling parent. "I bent so far backwards to be disengaged from Gabe's successes that I went overboard," Jeff said. "Gabe said to me, 'I wish you had made me practice more.' I can't help thinking, though, that being allowed to find his own path resulted in a very unusual artistic presence." Martha said, "Gabe is such a kind person. And that's in his music. He's told me sometimes he thinks about the way I respond to music when he's writing, and he's thanked me for giving him that emotional honesty."

Gabriel has recorded or performed with pop musicians Rufus Wainwright, My Brightest Diamond, and Sufjan Stevens, as well as with classical stars such as cellist Alisa Weilerstein and baritone Thomas Quasthoff. The New York Times New York Times called Gabriel "a highbrow polymath." He told me that he "would like to reach a unified language." He explained, "The idea of being a genre-bending performer is tired, but I feel increasingly oppressed at the concert hall. I hate the institution's reactionary elitism, its lack of irony. In the classical world, people don't understand that Lennon and McCartney had as savvy a sense of harmony and melody as Schubert." called Gabriel "a highbrow polymath." He told me that he "would like to reach a unified language." He explained, "The idea of being a genre-bending performer is tired, but I feel increasingly oppressed at the concert hall. I hate the institution's reactionary elitism, its lack of irony. In the classical world, people don't understand that Lennon and McCartney had as savvy a sense of harmony and melody as Schubert."

What few adults can do, even fewer children can do. In the grand scheme, however, genius is only marginally more astonishing than development itself. Small children go from nonverbal to verbal in two years, and to literate in five more. They can master several languages at the same time. They learn how the shapes of letters relate to both sound and meaning. They grasp the abstract idea of numbers and the means by which numbers characterize everything around us. They ace all this while they are learning to walk, chew, perhaps throw a ball, perhaps develop a sense of humor. Parents of prodigies are intimidated and awestruck at what their children can do-but so, fittingly, are parents of children who are not prodigies. Remembering that is the surest way to remain sane when parenting a child whose skills dramatically differ from or radically exceed one's own.

All parents of prodigies are making an enormous investment in a dubious outcome with huge risks: forsaken social development, crippling disappointment, chronic relocation, even permanent family rifts-all in the hope of an elusive lifestyle that may not be what the grown-up version of the prodigy turns out to want. While some parents push their kids too hard and give them breakdowns, others fail to support a child's passion for his own gift and deprive him of the only life that he would have enjoyed. You can err in either direction. The pushing error is more obvious and more present in our culture, but the other can be equally dire. Given the lack of consensus about how to raise ordinary children, it is unsurprising that none exists about how to raise remarkable children, and many parents of prodigies are flummoxed by children whose internal measure of happiness is radically alien.

Goethe's mother described telling stories to him: "Air, fire, water and earth I presented to him as beautiful princesses, and everything in all nature took on a deeper meaning. We invented roads between stars, and what great minds we would encounter. He devoured me with his eyes; and if the fate of one of his favorites did not go as he wished, this I could see from the anger in his face, or his efforts not to break out in tears. Occasionally he interfered by saying: 'Mother, the princess will not marry the miserable tailor, even if he slays the giant,' at which I stopped and postponed the catastrophe until the next evening. So my imagination was often replaced by his; and when the following morning I arranged fate according to his suggestions and said, 'You guessed it, that's how it came out,' he was all excited, and one could see his heart beating." eyes; and if the fate of one of his favorites did not go as he wished, this I could see from the anger in his face, or his efforts not to break out in tears. Occasionally he interfered by saying: 'Mother, the princess will not marry the miserable tailor, even if he slays the giant,' at which I stopped and postponed the catastrophe until the next evening. So my imagination was often replaced by his; and when the following morning I arranged fate according to his suggestions and said, 'You guessed it, that's how it came out,' he was all excited, and one could see his heart beating."

That one phrase, "my imagination was often replaced by his," bespeaks all that is most beautiful in the parenting of a remarkable child. In so replacing one's own imagination, one facilitates the growth of the child's. For the parents of prodigies, such wise self-effacement may exact a high price, but those who can set their own path by the light of their child's brilliance may find great solace in the ways that child remakes the world.

IX

Rape

A child conceived in rape gets as rough a start as a child with dwarfism or Down syndrome. The pregnancy is usually greeted as a calamity, upending family life that may already be riddled with strife. The mother not only doubts her ability to meet the challenges of child-rearing but is also uncertain whether she will ever get over the very fact of the child's existence. Rarely is a reliable partner on the scene to help. All new mothers are prone to ambivalence, but the hostility and revulsion often experienced by the mother of a rape-conceived child may be reinforced by her family. Society is likely to judge both mother and child unkindly. child conceived in rape gets as rough a start as a child with dwarfism or Down syndrome. The pregnancy is usually greeted as a calamity, upending family life that may already be riddled with strife. The mother not only doubts her ability to meet the challenges of child-rearing but is also uncertain whether she will ever get over the very fact of the child's existence. Rarely is a reliable partner on the scene to help. All new mothers are prone to ambivalence, but the hostility and revulsion often experienced by the mother of a rape-conceived child may be reinforced by her family. Society is likely to judge both mother and child unkindly.

With most disabilities, those who do not share a given condition struggle to find the humanity within it, while those who do share the condition gravitate toward one another for support, validation, and collective identity. With children of rape, however, the flaw is indiscernible to strangers, sometimes to family and friends, and often to the child, who must cope with its psychological shadow nonetheless. His horizontal identity is both profound and oblique. Often, his identity is a family secret, much as adoption can be, and who tells what, when, and to whom becomes a loaded give-and-take. You can keep your child's deafness or genius or autism secret only for a short time. Others are sure to notice; the child himself will usually notice. Children conceived in rape may go a lifetime without knowing their own identity. This means that who the mother is in the child's eyes and who the child is in the mother's are often in flux. Unlike adoption, however, which many experts believe should be shared with adopted children even before they can understand its full meaning, rape is too confusing and frightening to explain to a toddler; it's terrifying for any child to envision his parent as vulnerable, much less to feel complicit in that vulnerability.

Horizontal identities usually originate in the child, then spill over to the parents. Children conceived in rape, however, acquire their horizontal identity by way of their mother's trauma; here, the children are secondary, and they are much less likely to find others of similar exceptionality with whom to solidify that identity. The mother has the stronger horizontal identity, and the child has a resultant existential aloneness that follows from it. The mother of a schizophrenic may find herself in a club she never meant to join, but that association is defined by her child; the mother of a child conceived in rape has her own, separate, primary damage to negotiate. Her identity as a mother proceeds directly from her identity as a rape victim. Her child embodies the violence done against her and gives manifest permanence to what she may ache to forget. Instead of being unhinged by a startling discovery about her child, she knows what is wrong even before she learns that she's pregnant. Soon thereafter, like many other mothers of exceptional children, she must figure out whether she can love a child who is antithetical to anything she imagined or wanted. to the parents. Children conceived in rape, however, acquire their horizontal identity by way of their mother's trauma; here, the children are secondary, and they are much less likely to find others of similar exceptionality with whom to solidify that identity. The mother has the stronger horizontal identity, and the child has a resultant existential aloneness that follows from it. The mother of a schizophrenic may find herself in a club she never meant to join, but that association is defined by her child; the mother of a child conceived in rape has her own, separate, primary damage to negotiate. Her identity as a mother proceeds directly from her identity as a rape victim. Her child embodies the violence done against her and gives manifest permanence to what she may ache to forget. Instead of being unhinged by a startling discovery about her child, she knows what is wrong even before she learns that she's pregnant. Soon thereafter, like many other mothers of exceptional children, she must figure out whether she can love a child who is antithetical to anything she imagined or wanted.

Many people see children of rape as intrinsically defective-including, often, their mothers. Unlike other factions so perceived, this one has not coalesced into a thriving identity group; there is no obvious way to celebrate the part of oneself rejected by others. Even once a child knows his or her origins, he or she cannot easily locate others who share this identity. It is difficult to reckon with a visible disability and at least equally so to reckon with a defining difference that remains hidden. One of the few organizations founded to address this vacuum, Stigma Inc., took as its motto "Rape survivors are the victims...their children are the forgotten victims."

Historically, rape has been seen less as a violation of a woman than as a theft from a husband or father to whom that woman belonged, who suffered an insult and an economic loss (a woman's marriageability spoiled, for example). Hammurabi's Code described most rape victims as adulterers. A thousand years later, the Athenian state, prioritizing the protection of bloodlines, treated rape and adultery the same way; English law of the seventeenth century took a similar position.

Classical mythology abounds with rape, often by a licentious god. Zeus took Europa and Leda; Dionysus raped Aura; Poseidon, Aethra; Apollo, Euadne. It is noteworthy that every one of these rapes produces children, and that rather than being avatars of shame, they are half immortal. The rape of a vestal virgin by Mars produced Romulus and Remus, the twins who founded Rome. Romulus later organized the rape of the Sabine women to populate his new city. In the Renaissance, representations of that event often decorated marriage chests. Yet the hostility such children's origins may inspire has also long been acknowledged. In ancient and medieval societies, women who bore children conceived in rape were permitted to let them die of exposure. Yet the hostility such children's origins may inspire has also long been acknowledged. In ancient and medieval societies, women who bore children conceived in rape were permitted to let them die of exposure.

Misogyny is amply present in writings about rape throughout history. The great Roman physician Galen claimed that women could not conceive in rape-nor otherwise without an orgasm based in pleasure and consent. While Augustine promised women that "savage lust perpetuated against them will be punished," he also noted that rape keeps women humble, "whether previously they were arrogant with regard to their virginity or overfond of praise, or whether they would have become proud had they not suffered violation."

A woman in the American colonies could not make a claim of rape; her husband, her father, or, if she was a servant, her employer needed to present the cause to a magistrate. The understanding was that women were prone to bringing such charges to disguise illicit consensual sex. These women were considered guilty unless they could prove their innocence. In Puritan Massachusetts, a woman pregnant through rape was prosecuted for fornication. These habits of blaming the women began to change only with the social-justice movements of the early nineteenth century. The Kingston British Whig Kingston British Whig noted in 1835, "The bad character of a woman ought to be no reason that she should be without the protection of the law." Rape of black women in the United States was not acknowledged as rape; you could not violate your own property, and children conceived through such rapes were themselves slaves. Black men accused of rape were frequently found guilty if not killed without trial; white men often made cash settlements with their white victims to avoid prosecution. In the 1800s, the courts' primary concern was protecting white men who might be falsely accused. To prosecute for rape, a woman had to demonstrate that she had resisted, usually by showing evidence of bodily harm, and to somehow "prove" that the man had ejaculated inside her. noted in 1835, "The bad character of a woman ought to be no reason that she should be without the protection of the law." Rape of black women in the United States was not acknowledged as rape; you could not violate your own property, and children conceived through such rapes were themselves slaves. Black men accused of rape were frequently found guilty if not killed without trial; white men often made cash settlements with their white victims to avoid prosecution. In the 1800s, the courts' primary concern was protecting white men who might be falsely accused. To prosecute for rape, a woman had to demonstrate that she had resisted, usually by showing evidence of bodily harm, and to somehow "prove" that the man had ejaculated inside her.

Rape remained underreported through the mid-twentieth century because women feared adverse consequences if they spoke out. One impregnated rape victim of the 1950s said, "If a certain male wanted to get out of being named the true father, he would get about five of his buddies to swear swear they had sex with the girl. Branded promiscuous, the female had little recourse against the fellow, and she already experienced shame galore for birthing a child out of marriage." The rise of psychoanalysis did not help matters. Though Freud wrote little about rape, his followers saw the rapist as someone suffering a perverse, uncontrolled sexual appetite who fed into women's "natural" masochism. As late as 1971, the criminologist Menachem Amir described how they had sex with the girl. Branded promiscuous, the female had little recourse against the fellow, and she already experienced shame galore for birthing a child out of marriage." The rise of psychoanalysis did not help matters. Though Freud wrote little about rape, his followers saw the rapist as someone suffering a perverse, uncontrolled sexual appetite who fed into women's "natural" masochism. As late as 1971, the criminologist Menachem Amir described how women have "a universal desire to be violently possessed and aggressively handled by men," and concluded, "The victim is always the cause of the crime." women have "a universal desire to be violently possessed and aggressively handled by men," and concluded, "The victim is always the cause of the crime."

Appalled, feminists of the 1970s began arguing that rape was an act of violence and aggression, not sexuality. Susan Brownmiller's 1975 landmark book, Against Our Will: Men, Women, and Rape, Against Our Will: Men, Women, and Rape, maintained that rape had little to do with desire and everything to do with domination. She proposed that rape occurred much more widely than acknowledged, a result of the power differential between men and women, and she called for "gender free, non-activity-specific" laws that would purge rape of its sexual content to moot the idea that both parties were implicated. maintained that rape had little to do with desire and everything to do with domination. She proposed that rape occurred much more widely than acknowledged, a result of the power differential between men and women, and she called for "gender free, non-activity-specific" laws that would purge rape of its sexual content to moot the idea that both parties were implicated.

American law had defined rape as "an act of sexual intercourse undertaken by a man with a woman, not his wife, against her will and by force." Feminists attacked this definition, broadening it to include nonconsensual sex within relationships and marriages, extending it to include involuntary sexual contact other than penetrative penile-vaginal intercourse, removing the burden of proving that the encounter had been caused by irresistible force, and eliminating gender-specificity. The new view of rape encompassed sexual predation by a known assailant, and coerced contact even after consenting words had been spoken. Michel Foucault famously said of all sexual relations, "There is no difference, in principle, between sticking one's fist into someone's face or one's penis into their sex." A punch in the face is violence that employs the mechanisms of violence; rape is violence that tarnishes the apparatus of love. Rape violates the intimate, private self as well as the outer, social one. It is neither purely sexual nor purely violent; it is the humiliating expression of a power differential that aggressively unites these two motives and behaviors.

Both medical professionals and law enforcement officers are now widely trained to respond to evidence of rape. Legal definitions still vary from state to state and do not always accord with those used by the FBI and other federal agencies. Definitions vary even more widely internationally, and many countries classify forced sodomy as a much less serious crime than forced vaginal penetration. Because my focus is on women who bring up children conceived in rape, I did not speak to men, children, and postmenopausal women who have been raped, but no one is immune to rape's humiliating expression of a power differential.

As other social-awareness movements have transformed the experience of rearing a child with a disability, so feminism has changed the experience of rearing a child conceived in rape. The idea of a "proud victim" would have seemed laughable only a few decades ago; like all injury and abnormality, to be raped was ignominious. Because the crime was so rarely acknowledged or discussed, it was seldom prosecuted. Feminist definitions of rape have sought to quash the suggestion of victim culpability. Terms such as injury and abnormality, to be raped was ignominious. Because the crime was so rarely acknowledged or discussed, it was seldom prosecuted. Feminist definitions of rape have sought to quash the suggestion of victim culpability. Terms such as sexual assault sexual assault and and criminal sexual conduct criminal sexual conduct address the primacy of violence and change our understanding of rape from something a woman experiences to something a man does. address the primacy of violence and change our understanding of rape from something a woman experiences to something a man does.

Despite these enormous strides, rape often remains invisible. Our warnings to our daughters caution them against getting into a car with a stranger or going home with a man they meet in a bar, but 80 percent of rapes are committed by someone the victim knows. More than half of rape victims in the United States are under eighteen, and nearly a quarter of them-an eighth of the total-are under twelve. Rape is often habitual in abusive relationships and violent marriages. Impoverished women who depend on men for survival feel less volition over their own bodies. The Centers for Disease Control have asserted that rape is "one of the most underreported crimes" and estimate that only 10 to 20 percent of sexual assaults are reported.

There is not much writing about keeping children of rape, and the books that do exist mainly address genocidal conflicts abroad or are packaged in antichoice invective. The women I interviewed were eager to tell their stories in the hope that doing so might help others. It was painfully apparent, though, that they did so at considerable cost. Many would agree to meet only in extremely public situations because they felt they could not trust me enough to be in a more secluded location together. Others insisted on extremely private locations because the subject was so loaded that they couldn't bear to speak of it where someone might overhear them.

Marina James assured me that her neighborhood library in Baltimore was a good, quiet spot to talk, but when we got there, it was closed. It was a raw March day, but Marina guided us to a bench in a public park, where other people could see us, but not hear us. At twenty-six, she punctuated her most shocking thoughts with the word obviously obviously and seemed to believe that anyone else of even moderate intelligence would have made the same decisions she did. and seemed to believe that anyone else of even moderate intelligence would have made the same decisions she did.

Marina had gone to Antioch College in 2000. "A lot of their philosophy is striving for the best and doing good for others," Marina explained. "These were always things that I held important." After freshman year, she took time off to live in New York with a boyfriend, became pregnant, and had an abortion that destroyed the relationship. Then she returned to Antioch. At a campus party when she was twenty, the student DJ slipped a disabling sedative into her drink and then violently raped her. "It's more of a physical memory than an intellectual memory," she said. "I don't have pictures in my head but I have feelings in my body." raped her. "It's more of a physical memory than an intellectual memory," she said. "I don't have pictures in my head but I have feelings in my body."

She didn't press charges. "I know what defense attorneys do to rape victims," she said. "I drank, I did drugs, I had a good time. What justice would I get? It seemed like so much grief for nothing." When she talked about her experience to other women at the college, however, some confided that they'd been raped by the same man. None of them wanted to press charges, either, but they provided written statements that Marina presented to the dean, and the rapist was expelled. Because she didn't go to the police, Marina feels tragically culpable for the rapes she imagines him to have committed since.

When Marina learned that she was pregnant, she assumed she would have another abortion. But in her third month, she changed her mind; she didn't want to go through the process again. She would have the baby, then give it up for adoption. But as the months passed, she became disillusioned about adoption. She had used recreational drugs just before finding out that she was pregnant, and an adoption administrator told her not to say as much on the form because it might put off prospective parents. The deceit upset her. "The middleman was the only one benefiting, and all the people who had something at stake were being toyed with," she said. "My child was going to be biracial, and all the families were white and liked the fact that I was a well-educated white girl. The construction of her racial identity was going to be important, and I didn't think any of these people could help her with it."

So Marina decided to keep the baby. "Now that I have Amula and I have been really successful at being her mom, obviously I know I made the right decision. But at the time, I didn't know that. So it was torture." Marina gave birth later that year and chose the name, derived from amulet amulet, because she wanted the baby to be a sign of good luck and a protection against the evil that had produced her. Marina was paralyzed with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), perhaps mixed with postpartum depression. "I felt like I was a different person, and I couldn't even remember what the old person was," she said.

Marina went on to graduate school in social work, bringing her daughter to classes, but began to have frequent nightmares and had difficulty eating as well as sleeping. Amula started day care and saw other children dropped off and picked up by their fathers. Before she was two, she was asking, "Why don't I have a daddy?" It made Marina cry, and she didn't want to cry in front of her daughter, so she started getting counseling. "But they kept wanting me to talk about the rape," she said. "Everybody wants a play-by-play. I don't want to keep reliving a half hour of my life: I have all this other life that I would rather live." she said. "Everybody wants a play-by-play. I don't want to keep reliving a half hour of my life: I have all this other life that I would rather live."

At twenty-six, Marina is an idealist who lives to almost ostentatiously high standards, as if determined to outflank weakness and self-indulgence. She is attractive, poised, and somewhat severe. She talks about her own vulnerability easily, but she does not demonstrate it. It is hard to guess to what degree she was always like this, and in what measure being raped reshaped her. Like many of the women I met who had borne children through rape, Marina James sustained both revulsion at the origin of her pregnancy and profound joy in her child. "I thank God every day that I have my child. But I can't ignore the fact that it's a very painful thing, why she's here."

She didn't tell her mother about the rape until after Amula was born. Nonetheless, she and Amula moved to Baltimore because Marina's parents lived there and could help with child care; "That's where Amula is right now, obviously," she said. Marina's older sister, Nina, moved in with Marina and Amula. "My sister was like a mom to me since my mom was so absent, and now I'm like a mom to my sister because she prefers to regress," Marina explained. "I tell Amula, 'You don't have a dad, but we have Aunt Nini.' A lot of my Antioch friends are gay, and so I tell her lots of kids have two mommies or two daddies. I try to be proactive about how I frame it."

Marina eventually promised Amula that she would look for a daddy for her, but shows little interest in having a partner herself. "I don't consider myself a sexual person," she said. "I was before all this. I feel sad that Amula does not have a father-but not for me." Of course Amula does have a father, in the biological sense, and Marina knows his name. "Protecting her from him is the best thing I could do for her. My friends keep saying, 'You have to be able to forgive him in order to accept it and move on.' I want to punch people when they say that."

Although the rape and its aftermath tested Marina's belief, she has increasingly turned to God in a quest for greater insight. She was Christian, but her childhood friends were all Jewish, and after she returned to Baltimore, she reconnected with them and began to convert. "Studying Judaism has enabled me to feel emotion, which I haven't felt in years," she said. "It's enabled me to feel hope and to feel faith and it's definitely helped me to feel better. It's my way to not retreat from the world."

As a social worker, Marina frequently has to grapple with stories of sexual violence. "My personal pain is just a ripple in this huge ocean of pain that women feel every day," she said. Teaching other women about parenting "makes it even more meaningful for me to come home and give my kid a big hug and sit down and play with her on the floor-not just to enjoy it, but to be validated in knowing what a good job I am doing." just to enjoy it, but to be validated in knowing what a good job I am doing."

Marina has told her boss and several colleagues about Amula's origins. "People ask me and I don't like to lie," she said. "It makes people uncomfortable." For someone who deplores lying, it's all the more difficult to field Amula's increasingly complex and urgent questions. Marina says she doesn't feel ashamed, but remains concerned about how Amula would incorporate the rape into her own identity. "I just want her to know that she is always wanted, that I chose to keep her and feel that it was the right choice. Even when I was struggling every day with being a survivor, I never thought, 'I wish I didn't have this baby.'" When Marina is with Amula, she isn't remembering the rape. "I'm thinking, 'Oh, are your clothes clean for swimming tomorrow?' I'm being a mom. It's when I'm in bed at night that that stuff comes up." Marina said she related to veterans returning from Iraq. "They've seen horrific things that they could never express. They come home and they don't know how to use their bodies; they're different. Nobody understands, and they return to a community that has all these expectations that no longer make sense. That is exactly how I feel."

She surmises that having a baby soon after the rape may have curtailed her recovery. "I had to be a survivor and hit the ground running and take care of this kid," she said. But she admitted that without Amula, her method of recovery would simply have been to try to forget what had happened. "And then at some point later," she said, "it would have exploded." She worries that her bright, charming daughter might share personality traits with her rapist. "Half of her genes are evil," Marina said. "I can do whatever I should as her mom to make her this loving, wonderful, caring person. But in her is the DNA of a person who is really sick, and is that DNA stronger than what I can do?"

There is a war of statistics about the correlation of rape and pregnancy, and the confusion is only exacerbated by the adversarial agendas of the pro-choice and antiabortion movements. Some have argued that the biochemistry of fear promotes ovulation, concluding that one in ten coitally raped women gets pregnant; others have produced estimates as low as 3 percent. Women suffering ongoing abuse are particularly likely to conceive through that abuse, though violent abuse can cause damage, sometimes permanently, to a woman's reproductive capacity. Of course, pregnancy does not ensue when the victim is not of reproductive age, is using oral birth control or IUDs, or is a man. It is also precluded by nonvaginal rape.

Studies have found that between twenty-five thousand and thirty-two thousand rape-related pregnancies occur each year in the United States. In a 1996 study of rape-related pregnancy, half of the subjects terminated their pregnancies; of the rest, two-thirds kept the child, one-fourth miscarried, and the rest gave the children up for adoption. Extrapolating from those figures, at least eight thousand women in this country keep rape-conceived children every year. thousand rape-related pregnancies occur each year in the United States. In a 1996 study of rape-related pregnancy, half of the subjects terminated their pregnancies; of the rest, two-thirds kept the child, one-fourth miscarried, and the rest gave the children up for adoption. Extrapolating from those figures, at least eight thousand women in this country keep rape-conceived children every year.

Ready access to a safe abortion allows a woman who keeps a child conceived in rape to feel that she is making a decision rather than having the decision forced upon her. Even opponents of reproductive choice often allow for a "rape exception." Raped women require unfettered independence in this arena: to abort or carry to term; to keep the child or give him up for adoption. Women who opt to raise such children, like parents of disabled children, choose the child over his or her challenging identity. They and their children may struggle with societal condemnation.

Many women keep children conceived in rape because they have no access to abortion, because of religious beliefs, or because of a controlling partner, husband, or parent. I also met women who completed their pregnancies because deep self-examination led them to that decision. I met women who described keeping their pregnancies as a mute reenactment of the forced passivity they had experienced in rape. Some said their children felt like evidence-as if to abort them would be a denial of the event that produced them. Because the option to terminate any pregnancy is strongly associated with feminism, many of these women found their only support in the antiabortion movement and got saddled with a moral discourse to which they did not necessarily subscribe. Many women who wished to keep children conceived in rape said they felt intense social pressure to abort.

Pregnancy following rape is a double crisis. "Pregnancy after rape implies the nightmare not only of remembering the assault but also of giving it life inside her being," said Ana Milena Gil, a psychologist working in Bogota, Colombia. "By violating her body as a place of identity and autonomy, pregnancy resulting from rape creates a circle of pain. If rape hurts, damages, breaks women, pregnancy traps them. Living with the violence in your womb means having the attacker inside you."

An infant conceived in rape unites the genetics of the mother with those of her assailant. For some women, the rape-engendered fetus represents the unwelcome conquest of her body by an alien being; for others, it seems to be an extension of herself. In an article in U.S. News & World Report, U.S. News & World Report, one otherwise antiabortion woman counsels her sister, pregnant through rape, "If someone shot you, would you walk around one otherwise antiabortion woman counsels her sister, pregnant through rape, "If someone shot you, would you walk around with a bullet inside of you?" But another woman in identical circumstances said, "The baby was innocent. A victim like I was." It is imperative to remove a "bullet" from your person; it is likewise essential not to deprive an "innocent child" of life. The language used in these contexts implies moral values. The antiabortion feminist Joan Kemp writes, "It is significant that a child conceived in rape is more often called 'the rapist's child' than 'the rape victim's child.' In what sense can a rapist possibly be considered the 'father of this child'?" Language can be spun to dictate the "reasonable" course of action. A woman raped by a military guard is said by Kemp to have "concluded that the child was hers; that to reject the baby was to succumb to patriarchal attitudes." In this framing, the figurative bullet lodged in the mother is transformed into her center of power. with a bullet inside of you?" But another woman in identical circumstances said, "The baby was innocent. A victim like I was." It is imperative to remove a "bullet" from your person; it is likewise essential not to deprive an "innocent child" of life. The language used in these contexts implies moral values. The antiabortion feminist Joan Kemp writes, "It is significant that a child conceived in rape is more often called 'the rapist's child' than 'the rape victim's child.' In what sense can a rapist possibly be considered the 'father of this child'?" Language can be spun to dictate the "reasonable" course of action. A woman raped by a military guard is said by Kemp to have "concluded that the child was hers; that to reject the baby was to succumb to patriarchal attitudes." In this framing, the figurative bullet lodged in the mother is transformed into her center of power.

Some women experience attachment and revulsion in rapid alternation. In other instances, an initial hatred can give way to love-sometimes when the movement of the fetus is first felt, sometimes not until the child has matured into an adult. Women who have grown to love such children are often outspoken critics of abortion. Kay Zibolsky, founder of the antiabortion Life After Assault League, explained of her own pregnancy at sixteen, "The baby was part of my healing process. When she started to move in me, I looked at her as part of me, not him." Similarly, Kathleen DeZeeuw tried to deny that she had become pregnant following her attack, wearing girdles to conceal the changes in her body and attempting to self-induce miscarriage, but once the fetus began to kick and move, she said, "I began to realize that this little life inside me was struggling, too. Somehow, my heart changed. I was no longer thinking of the baby as the rapist's." Sharon Bailey said, "Basically my feelings were 'It's just you and me, kid.' I considered us both to be victims."

Knowing that your child had no part in violating you, however, is different from feeling that your child is untainted. "The first time I held him," Kathleen DeZeeuw admitted, "I was instantly reminded of his conception. There were many times that I had terrible feelings of hatred toward him. The laughter of my little boy often reminded me of the hideous laughter of this guy as he had raped me. I took it out on my son." Another woman reported despairingly, "I had tried to convince myself that the rape never happened. Then I would look at her and realize, yes, it must have happened." Padmasayee Papineni, who has studied women pregnant through rape, wrote, "Rape survivors have a much greater fear about intimacy, less comfort with closeness, and more fear of abandonment. Feelings of rejection by the mother towards the infant can lead to a wide range of psychological consequences in the child. 'The children constantly reminded mothers of the horrors of rape, and that inevitably influenced mutual relations.'" in the child. 'The children constantly reminded mothers of the horrors of rape, and that inevitably influenced mutual relations.'"

One August day in 1975, Brenda Henriques left her home in the projects in Queens to pick up her paycheck for working as an urban summer-camp counselor. She had tied the front tails of her shirt to show off her tanned belly in defiance of her mother, Lourdes. She got off the subway and was passing a parked cab when its door swung open and a man pulled her inside. "It was just so fast. I was on the floor. There was that hump in the middle of the car floor. So my butt was up on the hump and my face was down on the floor." The driver came into the backseat, and the two men raped her in sequence, then handed her jeans to her and pushed her back into the street with blood running down her legs.

Back home, she took a long shower and didn't say a word about what had happened. "Mom warned me about my shirt and I didn't listen, and look what happened," she said. "So I blamed myself. I felt like everybody knew. It was like I had a sign on me: 'Not a virgin anymore' or 'Rape victim: asked for it.'" When she missed her first period, she told her best friend, and they snuck out during recess and went to Planned Parenthood for a pregnancy test. When she called in for the result later and found it was positive, she collapsed in the phone booth, crying. At the time, abortion was legal for a sixteen-year-old without parental consent, but she "didn't think that an abortion would be a lie I could get away with." She told her boyfriend first, and he said he never wanted to see her again. Then she broke the news to her parents. Her father, Vicente, said, "Are you sure that's what happened? Why didn't you go to the police?" Years later, she shuddered. "Why, why, the whys came," she said. "I said, 'Mommy, I was wearing the shirt you told me not to wear.' And my mother says, 'You could be standing there naked on that corner, and no one would ever have a right to do that.' I cried with relief."

Still, they wanted to keep the pregnancy secret. Her Catholic father wanted her to go to stay with relatives in Puerto Rico and give the baby for adoption. Her grandmother told everybody that Brenda had secretly been married and her husband was in the military. The High School of Performing Arts wanted her to withdraw from classes; one of her friends circulated a petition, after which the school administration backed down, but moved her to a less visible place in the orchestra. Brenda felt she had to be her baby's champion.