A Dozen Refreshingly Candid Books About Motherhood
(The oldest of these was published in 2001, which means either that there’s been a flourishing of the kind of books that interest me in the last twenty years or that I simply wasn’t paying attention earlier.)
Nonfiction
A Life’s Work: On Becoming a Mother by Rachel Cusk
Making Babies: Stumbling into Motherhood by Anne Enright
Great with Child: Letters to a Young Mother by Beth Ann Fennelly
Little Labors by Rivka Galchen
The Argonauts by Maggie Nelson
Loved and Wanted: A Memoir of Choice, Children, and Womanhood by Christa Parravani
Fiction
The Lost Daughter by Elena Ferrante
Florida by Lauren Groff
Hot Milk by Deborah Levy
Dept. of Speculation by Jenny Offill
The Need by Helen Phillips
We Need to Talk About Kevin by Lionel Shriver
(One recent novel that falls outside the parameters of this list—because its take on motherhood is metaphorical and fantastical, and because it’s written by a man—but that shares some concerns with the others and might supplement them: Borne by Jeff VanderMeer.)
— December 18, 2020