Drop everything. Rush out and nab this. A howl of anguish at the horrors of what the American author calls “the birthing of industrialised women” (shivers), it’s also about the sensational loneliness of early motherhood and the terrifying mood swings, one minute adoring, the next screaming, inside, “Tiny moron, leave me alone.” Our heroine is angry that she was bullied into a Caesarian, gutted like a fish and sent home split from gizzard to gantry with a tiny newborn. Reeling from exhaustion, major surgery and a new little one she’s trying to cope with, as well as displacement from her home turf of Brooklyn, she finds that her lifelines are her husband, two gay friends, and the beautiful Mina, rockstar goddess, similarly in the birth zone. Blisteringly livid at so much in her life, she brings out her soft side for Mina and her born-at-home babe. Love, love, love it.
