A Life's Work: On Becoming a Mother

by Rachel Cusk

For ages Parents

View "A Life's Work: On Becoming a Mother " at Amazon

Don't say we didn't warn you: acclaimed British novelist Rachel Cusk's memoir of her first year as a mother is moving, but also quite sobering. Not that she doesn't provide many witty, even funny moments. As when she compares the prospect of giving birth to being asked to fly and land a jumbo jet. Or when she dryly catalogs the wildly contradictory advice found in baby manuals: "the more I read, the more my daughter recedes from me," she quips. Through colic and sleeplessness ("gradually the distinction between day and night dissolved entirely"), she turns instead to Wharton, Lawrence, Bronte, and Coleridge, and this is one of the book's great delights. The question of what happens to a woman's identity when she becomes a mother is not new, but Cusk's eloquence and brutal honesty offer one of the best and most surprising takes on the subject we've seen. She hopes that we find "companionship" in her experiences, and we do.

$14.00
$12.60

Review provided by The Savvy Source.