Has anyone read "A Life's Work" by Rachel Cusk?

Ummm - I didn't take it as self obsessed, or think that she was putting herself forward as the first person to have a baby.

For me, she expressed beautifully and accurately feelings I was unable to articulate - or perhaps didn't feel it was acceptable to articulate. It was a huge relief to read another woman's experience as I was experiencing many of the same things. I didn't feel nearly so freakish or isolated after I read her book.

But lots of us did have that sort of vague, HV-suggested form of PND, and she describes the insidiousness of it so perfectly. There's the feeling that because you're educated and well-supported you're doing fine, and then you realise that your responses and instincts are just way, way off and you're in an emotional landscape for which you just don't have a map, and actually you suspect that you're desperately lost. She described the PND I recognised. Couldn't identify with it as described by my jolly HV at all.

I think I've read this. Is it the one with the black-and-white picture on the front? It sounds like the kind of thing I would have read in a post-baby panic, so I guess I'm with www and can't remember it

I thought Kate Fige's Life After Birth was an excellent "Ohmygodthat'sexactlyhowIfeel" book (I may have recommended this once or twice before...)

I think it's possibly more helpful than letting them write a book about how much they hated having children, and being lionised for it, Greeny

I read it and can't remember it AT ALL. Oops!

I really enjoyed the misery of the book even though I also wanted to shake her sometimes for self-obsession.

but she's hardly the first to write about this. Lots of women have written about feelings of maternal ambivalence, rage and hatred. Adrienne Rich wrote about this very powerfully. Rachel Cusk is a bit irritating for seeming to think she's the first one to have had a baby and found it hard.

I didn't read it, but I read about it and it sounded very disturbing. Some of the quotes...I worry about these sort of books, because they seem to normalise feelings of rage and hatred towards one's children...it really isn't natural or ok to be feeling like that with any frequency. I hope that people who do would seek help. :(

Im bidding on a copy on Ebay now greeny

sounds amazing

I found it profoundly annoying and kept wanting to shake her and say 'look, sort yourself out, you've got PND, and get some proper childcare instead of wafting about putting ads in the local newsagent for any passing perve to perve over, and just stop feeling so damn important'.

ooh - ooh - hold back -

no I LOATHE this book. No I don't. Well, I partly do. It sends me into conniptions, anyway. She misquoted Emma's diary (by one word, but it completely changed the meaning). And says at one point that she's not used to the requirements of non-fiction. Also it's all absolutely and completely awful for two solid years or whatever, and then suddenly 'my second daughter' - when did that happen?

And she's rude about Oxford - or perhaps I just assume it's Oxford as it's very familiar, and I feel hurt that she didn't like it -

Yes it's very well written. Dammit.

Yes. Read it about 3 years ago. She's a wonderful writer, but it was especially powerful as I had experienced many of the same thoughts/feelings she describes - though of course, I don't have the ability to express them nearly so accurately and concisely.

Have you ever read any of her other books?

utterly fab-- the book I wish I'd written and am immensely glad I read.

The bit about Emma's Diary makes me pmsl. The rest of it makes me want to wail with recognition.