With thought-provoking digressions on famous and infamous mothers, this book uniquely probes the boundaries of motherhood and the taboo. Mothers Don’t asks: how we can balance motherhood with our yearnings for something more?
A mother kills her twins. Another woman, the narrator, is about to give birth. She is a writer and realises that she knows the woman who killed the children. An obsession is triggered. She takes a leave of absence, not to nurture her baby, but to write. To investigate the hidden truth behind the crime. This book is halfway between a thriller and a journalistic chronicle. A novel about the primal guilt that comes with being a mother. Katixa Agirre also reflects on the relationship between motherhood and creativity, in dialogue with other female writers such as Sylvia Plath and…
A masterful short story collection full of dark humor, laying bare the challenges of parenting, marriage, and being a woman in the world. These stories are hilarious and quietly devastating. The women in these stories feel real, messy, and wholly themselves. In the opening story, “After Pangaea,” a hapless dad becomes something of a blogger/parenting expert/cult leader as his wife looks on, baffled and left to shoulder the lonely work of mothering alone. Other stories, such as “The Pregnancy Game” confront more overtly chilling truths about the political implications of being a woman in the world and the lack of bodily rights. These stories shine with their openness and their willingness to pose difficult questions without spoon-feeding answers.
The fourteen spellbinding stories in Michelle Ross's second collection invite readers into the shadows of social-media perfectionism and the relentless cult of motherhood. A recovering alcoholic navigates the social landscape of a toddler playdate; a mother of two camps out in a van to secure her son's spot at a prestigious kindergarten; a young girl forces her friends to play an elaborate, unwinnable game. With unflinching honesty and vivid, lyric prose, Ross explores the familial ties that bind us together-or, sometimes, tear us apart.
Biting and brutal, Liars is a portrait of a heterosexual marriage and the persistent difficulties of achieving equality under the patriarchy. Manguso explores how a self-avowed feminist could find herself stuck in an abusive relationship for over a decade—it’s infuriating and all too real. But what I especially love about Liars is how it exposes the sometimes-silent epidemic of domestic, emotional, and unpaid labor, and how gendered expectations can covertly (or not so covertly) operate within a relationship. Written in short bursts of prose that feel almost like diary entries, Liars is an intimate and emotionally compelling novel that explores the darker underbelly of marriage and motherhood.
It's No Fun Anymore is a haunting collection of eight stories, reaching into the darkest corners of modern womanhood to illuminate themes of trauma, identity, and the elusiveness of safety in our capitalist society.
A stay-at-home mother takes inspiration from a 1950s self-help book in a desperate attempt to reclaim her agency. A marriage implodes under the weight of a shampoo-sales pyramid scheme. The specter of generational trauma haunts a new mom in the delivery room. These stories juxtapose the everyday with the uncanny across diverse territories, from anime conventions to kindergarten classrooms. The result is an eerie familiarity, an intensity that lingers long after the final page.
