Prologue
The tendency toward self-reinvention is so deep in American culture that we have an entire industry, a self-help industry, telling us how to transform ourselves into someone new. And usually, we see this as a positive thing.
Act One: Interracial Marriage
Rich Robinson's father is black, his mother is white. They married during the civil rights movement, believing the whole nation was moving toward greater and greater integration.
Act One: Book Of Job
Reporter Scott Carrier does a story about Harvey "Job" Matusow.
Act One: Anti-Oedipus
This American Life producer Nancy Updike on a family where the father was one kind of sissy and the son was another kind, and how the family was destroyed despite the fact that no one wanted it to be.
Act Three: The Moment Dad Left
Audio artist Jay Allison and writer Dan Robb present an audio montage on the moment Robb's parents divorced.