Unpacking the motherhood debate

Since Rachel Cusk’s ground-breaking memoir A Life’s Work: On Becoming a Mother, was published in 2001, books about the reality of motherhood have proliferated. Recently, however, the subject of whether to become a mother or not at all has been foregrounded in fiction. Cusk’s book, in her own words, “set out to describe the physical events of childbirth and early motherhood” and she was castigated for it — with one reviewer suggesting that if everyone read her book, the propagation of the human race would basically end as it made the whole business sound so unpleasant.

“Complaining” about motherhood is now commonplace, as it should be — from Mumsnet talk forums to bestselling fiction. Claire Kilroy’s coruscating novel Soldier Sailor (2023) is possibly the most striking new example: the narrator briefly leaves her newborn son in a forest glade after a vitriolic row with her husband. She believes she is protecting her child from the bleakness she feels inside by abandoning him, albeit temporarily.

(c) Ben Bailey Smith

This Is Not About You

The journalist Rosemary Mac Cabe’s first book This Is Not About You appears – at least at first glance – to want to have it both ways because whilst the title addresses the men she has dated, warning them this book is not about them, the subtitle describes the book as “a menmoir”. I have a feeling that Mac Cabe would not argue with the idea that she wants things both ways or at least that she wants to live on her own terms as this memoir seems to be a reaction to having pandered to other people for far too long. She writes with appealing candour – which is perhaps why the book is dedicated “To my mum, who will hate this”.  

Aside from a ‘Preface’ and ‘Epilogue’, there is only one other chapter, entitled ‘Beginnings’, which does not have the name of a man. All the other chapters, from ‘Henry’ to ‘Brandin’, are named after the man she happened to be dating at the time. This is far from a rose-tinted view of romance – she describes losing her virginity as “a little like the time I’d had a verruca frozen off in the doctor’s surgery: uncomfortable, but I had entered into this willingly.” It is notable that even the first time she had sex she lied about enjoying it, as she says it was important to her not to hurt a man’s feelings.  

I, Julian by Claire Gilbert

Claire Gilbert considers Julian of Norwich to be the mother of English literature, and believes she should stand alongside Chaucer. What seems indisputable is that Julian was the author of the first work written in English by a woman. This rather wonderful fictional autobiography was published to coincide with the 650th anniversary of Julian first experiencing, in May 1373, the series of 16 visions she wrote about in Revelations of Divine Love. It comes garlanded with praise from, among others, Jeremy Irons and Rowan Williams, the former Archbishop of Canterbury.

In Gilbert’s account, Julian was just a child when she watched her father, a Norwich wool merchant, die in agony from the plague, and when her visions begin she assumes she too is dying of the pestilence – as her husband and daughter have done. Gilbert uses her own experience of cancer – in particular the dreadful constipation she endured as a result of the anti-sickness medication she was prescribed – to evoke Julian’s ordeal of bodily pain.

The Guest by Emma Cline

Emma Cline’s smash hit first novel, The Girls, was the biggest-selling hardback debut novel of 2016 and attracted fans as diverse as Lena Dunham and Richard Ford. A collection of short stories entitled Daddy came next but there hasn’t been another novel until now. The Guest is tighter in focus than The Girls – the latter had a double time-frame and beautifully delineated the experience of girls at the fringes of a Manson-like cult. The Guest is about one woman, 22-year-old Alex, who is staying with an older man, Simon, on the East Coast.

Cline is a peerlessly confident writer and avoids any obvious exposition so we don’t know exactly how Alex ended up at Simon’s house or why she wants to be there but we can guess. We do know that her roommates kicked her out of her apartment for stealing and not paying her rent. There are various hotels and restaurants she is not welcome at and she owes money to a man disturbingly named Dom – whose incensed messages flicker on her rarely functioning mobile phone.

The Sleep Watcher by Rowan Hisayo Buchanan

The Sleep Watcher, the third thoughtful novel by the gifted Rowan Hisayo Buchanan, features a narrator who floats free from her body at night and circles around invisibly, observing her family and friends. This departure into the supernatural from the author’s previous work does not leaven the sadness of her writing, and the book is even more melancholic than her Starling Days (2019), which opened with the protagonist contemplating suicide.  

Sixteen-year-old Katherine, or Kit as she is known, does not always like what she sees as she wanders about unobserved – though it does allow for some moments of comedy. She lives with her parents, F and M, and her younger brother Leo in a seaside town, working at the local museum in the holidays before her A-levels begin, and has a gentle boyfriend, Andrew, who likes drawing comic-book-style pictures of kraken. 

There’s an underlying violence to her parents’ relationship which Kit can’t quite fathom, even after she begins observing them at night during her ‘sleep watching’.

Spring Reads 2023

Spring has sprung and along with the crocuses, you will need something decent to read and for once, there is a fecund crop of upcoming new books to choose from.

From ex-aide Cleo Watson’s “sex and skulduggery” romp in Westminster, Whips, to Max Porter’s latest, there should be something to suit all tastes.

1. Big Swiss by Jen Beagin

Big Swiss is currently being turned in to HBO series starring Jodie Comer and it has a very juicy premise indeed. Greta works as a transcriber for a sex therapist and she becomes particularly fascinated by one client who has never had an orgasm and whom she nicknames ‘Big Swiss’ (Comer plays her) and later meets in the dog park. The two women embark on a passionate affair that flips upside down what they think about fidelity, honesty and also, donkeys.