A cross between We Need To Talk About Kevin & Fifty Shades...

[beaufranked]

Just finished Wounding by Heidi James. Holy Mother of God, it rocks your world. This is a book about motherhood to end all books! Shaking at the end like you wouldn't believe, so unsettling on an everyday level. Literally did end up wounding myself as scrapped hand on the locker at the gym after I'd finished. Life mimicking art!

This is such a book for Mumsnet. Would love love love to hear others thoughts on such a frank book. Cora (the main character) must have PND?? We may all have flashes of what she feels...anyway I urge to read as discussion on these issues/ambiguities is so needed...

I heard about this book on twitter… looked it up, its got great reviews. At last a book that discusses motherhood and ambivalence - I can't be the only one who feels like this! Can't wait to read it, ordered it today. Looking forward to discussing more.

Thanks for recommendation OP, but can I ask exactly why it's like 50 Shades please?

Couldn't agree more. This book is a must for mums wanting different discussions about what it means to be a modern mother. Weirdly, I posted a review of the book in the review section of mums net just the other day but it isn't up yet. I don't think Cora has PND. I think it's too easy to put her in that category. This isn't just about children, it's also about housekeeping and being a wife - it's as if her real self has been subsumed by her roles and left her desperate for something to make her feel again. What did anyone else think?

I think this is far more interesting than any particular diagnosis and more of a discussion of the complexities of motherhood and relationships. I found the husbands side equally interesting and the different perspectives show how different people view the same thing. The notion of a mother not really 'bonding' or 'loving' is so value laden but can be for any number of reasons, how many mothers or parents in general have found that being a parent differs from their expectations?

Now starting this. Thanks for the recommendation :)

Ive read it too. Its much more Kevin than 50 shades but both dont do it justice. Ive got three kids and love them dearly but what this book expresses soooo clearly is that ... ambivalence? or those times when you feel like youre being swallowed? Its difficult to talk about but I think needs addressing when the ideal of motherhood being a simply blissful time is so prevalent. And the husbands side expresses again so clearly what you know when youre like this- that someone else is involved and loves you but....Give it a try and lets talk about it.

Thanks for the recommendation, I'm ordering it!

Only making a trite reference to some of the S&M activities in both. I won't read Fifty Shades as too awful...just boiling down I guess. Wounding explores it interestingly and intelligently - the destruction/pain impulse. Being sensationalist! It doesn't deserve that comparison in retrospect as amazingly written.

Have just ordered it!

Sounds good, loved We need to Talk about Kevin. Will check it out

Wounding is such a brave, beautifully written book; raw and incredibly painful to read in many places. Like swerving into the path of a juggernaut on the motorway it takes the reader into a mother's hell that so many woman can all too easily imagine. Cora becomes an expression of how bad things could get once you can no longer hold things together, however tenuous you feel your grip is on the everyday.
Love in all guises has the power to destroy and childbirth only serves to remind Cora that she has given birth to something that could then die.
Cora has a stable family and a husband that loves her- on the surface she has everything but she is disappearing. She can inflict pain and hurt on her own children, their helpless vulnerability only serving to intensify her self loathing.
The pain of this book is overwhelming- Cora becomes increasingly isolated and cannot articulate any of her ambivalent feelings. Heidi James also offers an extraordinary insight into her husband's mind. He knows something is wrong but he still sees Cora as a wonderful mother- he also has ambivalent feelings towards the relationship he perceives Cora to have with her son- again based on an assumption that a 'natural' mother has a particular bond with her boys.
There are so many questions and complexities that the novel raises that are still huge taboos in most cultures
The mother's loss of self, of freedom; the impact of children on intimacy and a relationship; the impact on the father; the repetition, the relentless responsibility. The strains and sleep deprivation- how the layers of social niceties and tolerance can get stripped away until there is nothing but the bare bones with no buffer to the outside world
The fear and anxiety that children can engender- the terror of losing them, the pressure of not bonding with them; the resentment, the loneliness- the fear of ones self.
How on the edge a mother can feel- how easy it is to slip into a vulnerable state of mind
I cannot recommend Wounding enough- it is powerful and devastating
and will hopefully spark a big debate here.

So glad to see Wounding getting mentioned here - it has been a real discussion point in my book club. I loved it, some others found it confronting but we all agreed it was beautifully written and a refreshing change. It' the first book I've read that presents a real (albeit dramatised) mother's need for separateness, and the terrible guilt that can come along with that.

We all know that feeling of being suffocated by the needs of others, and yet if you verbalise it you're made out to be a monster. Cora's story is hard to read in parts, in just the same way as it's hard to hear the suffering of a friend - which is how I felt about her at the end, and I keep thinking about her like a real person.

It's about time the real life of mothers was portrayed in literatre, beyond the earth mother/superwoman/50s housewife fiction that we're all fed. Highly recommend, particulraly for book clubs, as it stimulated some of the most honest and excellent discussions I've had at mine - and finallyl went beyond children's sleeping habits, lazy husbands and whether we've lost our baby weiight! HOORAY. xx

Oh and agree with @clattinr that it's interesting to see the husband's side. Apparantly PND is nearly as common in men as women so it's important not to forget their suffering in all of this.

Started reading on Kindle, haven't finished yet, but agree it's a fantastically written book (Thanks for the recommend!). There are aspects that really speak to me and some that don't, but even then I feel sympathy with the characters and am glad that this is out there - we aren't all cookie cutter, exactly alike in our feelings. The husband is really interesting but I'm really intrigued by the relationship between Cora and her parents, especially her dad. It's in the background… this tension between her being his daughter and her kids mother. I hope I'm not being too simplistic, but the whole family is pulled into this in ways that seem very realistic to me.

Thank you for recommending this - I am mid way through - it rings so true. Enjoying both voices though I find his jars slightly at times in the insistence on happiness - which may be the point.

Anyway I am really enjoying it. More when I've finished it!

Btw I don't find it that similar to Kevin. Couldn't even start 50 Shades so can't comment on that...

Agree, I think Kevin wasn't as complex as this… I think you're right about the husband's voice, it is the point that he insists on them being happy rather than actually seeing her and the situation as it is. Something I've been guilty of I think!

This book sounds like a great one for my bookclub - and possibly the Mumsnet community bookclub? am off to click and buy now - thanks for the rec.

Katie, have you got to the end yet? I am dreading it ending - both because I love the style but also I fear weak endings - I really hope it ends strongly.

Yes, it rings bells for me too. The husband imagining how a different context/setting would turn them into a happy family....

Ordered this book after seeing it recommended here yesterday. Finished it already and loved it.

Something in the book really spoke to me in it's honest portrayal of feelings post having children. There is the expected ideal of bonding and not how at times I think we can all feel suffocated and removed from that. I had pnd after dc2 and while I think the reasons behind Cora's feelings are more complex I could identify with her and how you are playing a role that most seem to buy into.

The s&m scenes aren't for pleasures sake but a form of self-harm when the numbness and hatred for oneself becomes so all consuming the pain inflicted is just to feel something, if only for a while as pain is at least a feeling, a release. Interesting how the husband sees the ideal, the role of the typical mother and is jealous of the relationship he believes the main character and her children have.

Yes… I have finished. I cried at the end…. Cora isn't the monster she/society thinks.. that she tries so hard and punishes herself - agreed the s/m isn't sex but trying to feel - is heartbreaking. I recognise a lot of myself and my own mother in some of this, but also feel reassured that I'm not unnatural. Grateful for this book and its not often I'd say that. Usually I read to entertain myself - if you know what I mean.

I've finished it too now. I was oddly jolted by the husband recounting her kissing someone else years earlier and him seeing - I realized how he felt inadequate compared to her even then even though she also felt inferior to him - yet they never discussed it. I was also jolted by him assuming she is absorbed in her children when in fact she needs to escape - it made me realize I make similar assumptions about other people, comparing them to naff Hallmark style fantasies of family life.

I loved it. I really understood Cora, though I haven't been through what she has or had similar fantasies - I just understand the need to feel beyond what you are meant to.

I did want her and him to talk, but I knew even if they did it would have never worked as they are in different spheres of thought and emotion and assume they understand the other when they don't.

Did what I think happened at the end happen?

Probably not helpful but I don't want to spoil it?

does anyone know anything about the author? I'd love to read about her, or an interview…

Cantdothisagain - I wondered what would happen if they talked… probably more confusion!