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Original poster

Women writers who depict childrearing in a literary & non-fluffy way - any recs.?

37 replies

FaddyPeony · 28/06/2013 20:46

On my list so far I have:

Anne Enright
Rachel Cusk
Sarah Moss

...And now I am stumped, can't think of any more. Are there more?

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LucyTheValiant · 16/07/2013 13:46

Have you read The Birth of Love? It's not just about childrearing - set in three timezones, one historical, one present, one dystopian. But it's very good, and the 'present' (with a mother about to give birth to her second child) sounds like it's what you're looking for.

Lurleene · 15/07/2013 20:20

Sorry, Anne with an e Tyler.

Lurleene · 15/07/2013 20:20

I love all Ann Tyler's books, but Ladder of Years is my absolute favourite. It is all about a mother who walks away from her family on an impulse, and how she rediscovers herself.

ercolercol · 15/07/2013 20:13

Helen Simpson - Hey Yeah Right Get a Life. Fantastic book. Really showed me before kids just how unfair the whole 'man goes to work, woman stays at home' thing is, and made me be very clear about child rearing / housework / cooking with dh before we had kids.

The bit where the mum sits at a client dinner and mindlessly repeats 'the wheels on the bus' - the most scary thing I have ever read in a book.

MegBusset · 10/07/2013 21:53

I came on to say The Hand That First Held Mine, mentioned already upthread.

biological · 10/07/2013 21:49

Another vote for Helen Simpson - Hey Yeah Right Get a Life.

joanofarchitrave · 10/07/2013 21:28

The Cazalet Chronicles by Elizabeth Jane Howard includes a fair bit of quite intense pieces on childrearing, along with lots of other stuff.

SuffolkNWhat · 07/07/2013 22:41

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Colyngbourne · 07/07/2013 07:48

Maybe Julie Myerson?

Original poster
FaddyPeony · 06/07/2013 12:53

I just listened to a Helen Simpson story online (Guardian). Thank you for the recommendation, all - it was VERY GOOD. I may have had something in my eye by its close

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Lomaamina · 05/07/2013 20:50

I so agree quirrelquarrel I still reread the L-Shaped Room just to see how far things have moved in a generation. The two sequels were almost as good.

There are several of the above that I've also read and loved (Gardham Drabble and Whipple), but I wanted to add thanks for the recommendations of the Byatt quartet and the Weiner one too, which I've just ordered. My book stack was getting dangerously low so this is perfect timing for me (even though my own baby is a strapping 14-year-old Grin)

NicknameTaken · 03/07/2013 10:03

Although on Helen Simpson, I'd start with her earlier stuff - her later ones (I'm thinking of In-Flight Entertainment) are less about motherhood and I remember them as very bleak.

RoooneyMara · 02/07/2013 19:45

Oh I was going to say Sarah Moss.

wintersnight · 02/07/2013 19:41

Helen Simpson is the one for me. Also I'm sure Lorrie Moore has written some good stuff about motherhood although the only one I can remember is about a baby with cancer which was pretty hard to deal with.

quirrelquarrel · 02/07/2013 19:32

Jean Rhys- marvellous woman.....if you get the chance, pick up a copy of 'Three Difficult Women' by David Plante. Read it in one sitting in an airport. More like a lecture you don't want to end.

Original poster
FaddyPeony · 02/07/2013 18:36

Love these recommendations, thank you all. Cheered to see so many!

Tbh I was so shellshocked after the birth of dd Cusk's book was exactly what I needed. There was a great bit about going to bed like you were preparing for battle, or as if you had left the front door wide open...going to sleep knowing you'd be woken an hour later.

Was reading about Jean Rhys. Apparently her DS died of pneumonia as a baby after being left near an open window. Awful.

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motherinferior · 02/07/2013 16:31

Oh YES! HS!

NicknameTaken · 02/07/2013 16:24

Nearly forgot - Helen Simpson does wonderful short stories. Try Hey Yeah Right Get a Life. One story "Cafe Society" is a wonderful depiction of what it's like to meet a friend for coffee with a toddler in tow.

ArabellaBeaumaris · 02/07/2013 16:10

Hostages to Fortune by Elizabeth Cambridge.

motherinferior · 02/07/2013 15:58

Judy Astley is also surprisingly good, despite the pink packaging.

motherinferior · 02/07/2013 15:57

Sara Maitland is frequently very good - she writes movingly in one of her short stories about how horrifically tethered to the baby one feels through love. Celia Fremlin's 'The hours before dawn' also very good if you can get hold of it. Can't stand Cusk's self-indulgent 'I am the only sensitive soul ever to have a baybee' tone myself but if it fries your onion...AS Byatt's earlier 'Still life' also very good (I think she sort of lost the plot with her later books, in all honesty).

quirrelquarrel · 02/07/2013 15:49

Rebecca West, who's clearly a goddess- The Fountain Overflows

Hons and Rebels

The Blessing- Nancy Mitford

The Children's Book- A.S. Byatt (one of my favourites)

Jane Gardam, maybe, she does quite a bit of coming of age

NicknameTaken · 02/07/2013 09:48

Ooh, exexpat, I read The Millstone recently and was surprised how much I liked it, although in many ways it's a period piece. And I thought Wife in the North was going to be fluffy, but it really is not - all about marital compromise and dealing with grief.

I'm currently reading The Rise and Fall of a Domestic Diva, which is marketed as chicklit but is darker than that - all cracking marriages and hints of postnatal psychosis. It focuses on a small social class, London yummy mummies, but it doesn't under-estimate the toll of raising small children.

Nivet · 29/06/2013 22:34

How about this - The Homemaker by Dorothy Canfield Fisher?

And another vote for The Hand That First Held Mine, MOF's description of the tiredness and confusion in the first few weeks after your first baby struck a chord with me, I think PFB was about 12 weeks when I read it.

Original poster
FaddyPeony · 29/06/2013 22:34

Thank you folks, some really interesting recs here. I am basically after reading material that truthfully depicts women's lives. I get so frustrated reading novels by important men sometimes...do you know what i mean,story's great, writing's great but there's not a wide enough spectrum of human existence. Am glad to get these recommendations.

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