Dimensions
137 x 222 x 22mm
A year has passed since Ari gave birth to Walker, though it went so badly awry she has trouble calling it 'birth' and still she can't locate herself in her altered universe. Amid the strange, disjointed rhythms of her days and nights and another impending winter in upstate New York, Ari is a tree without roots, struggling to keep her branches aloft. When Mina, a one-time cult musician - older, self-contained, alone and nine-months pregnant -moves to town, Ari sees the possibility of a new friend, despite her unfortunate habit of generally mistrusting women. Soon they become comrades-in-arms, and the previously hostile terrain seems almost navigable. With piercing insight, purifying anger, and outrageous humor, Elisa Albert issues a wake-up call to a culture that turns its new mothers into exiles, and expects them to act like natives. And as she lays bare the raw experience of new motherhood, Albert offers a hilarious and devastatingly honest examination of how we become the women we are. Like Lionel Shriver's We Need to Talk About Kevin and Anne Enright's The Gathering, this is a daring and provocative novel from a visceral, brave and funny new writer.