A widely acclaimed young writer's fierce new novel, in which childbirth and new motherhood are as high stakes a proving ground as any combat zone
A year has passed since Ari gave birth to Walker, though it went so badly awry she has trouble calling it "birth" to begin with and she still can't locate herself in her own 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. Like Lionel Shriver's We Need to Talk about Kevin and Anne Enright's The Gathering, this is a daring and resonant novel from one of our most visceral writers.
Download and start listening now!
“After Birth is a fast-talking, opinionated, moody, funny, and slightly desperate account of the attempt to recover from having a baby. It is a romp through dangerous waters, in which passages of hilarity are shadowed by the dark nights of earliest motherhood, those months so tremulous with both new love and the despairing loss of one’s identity—to read it is an absorbing, entertaining, and thought-provoking experience.”
—
Lydia Davis, author of Can’t and Won’t