children – Dr JoAnn LoSavio

Feral Creatures of Burburbia by D. Liebhart

This is the second book of D. Liebhart’s I have read and I can’t wait for the next. Contemporary fiction isn’t my usual genre, but Liebhart’s introspective and acutely insightful style borders on literary fiction. This isn’t a casual novel for the lighthearted; Feral Creatures will rip a hole in your soul and leave a scar. But it will be one you treasure as a reader, one that will change your perspective on life and the world — and perhaps how you read. It did for me.

This is, in large part, due to Liebhart’s skill as a writer. The prose is simultaneously lyrical and straightforward, soothing and incisively sharp. There were several moments I had to pause reading, just to take a breath. But the urge to know what happens, the need for resolution drove me back.

The story moves slowly, but the pace is measured and deliberate — and warranted. The story unfolds in overlapping parts, revolving around three women: Julie, Crystal, and Varvara, and their children: Logan, Mateo, and Myra. Their lives are ordinary — recognizable as our own. It is the tragic intersection of their relationships with one another that the novel builds toward. It is a situation we have all — at one point or another — dreaded to prepare for.

Grief, loss, and the hardship of loving their children are the major themes of these women’s’ lives — indeed, of ALL our lives.

Without Children: The Long History of Not Being a Mother
by Peggy O’Donnell Heffington

I read this over Mother’s Day, so it was particularly poignant for me as I reflected on the fluidity of my own womanhood and ideas concerning mothering. It’s a profound read; readers should be prepared to question their notions of womanhood and mothering.

As a mother, I found this history of mothering, motherhood, and childlessness to be an amazing read, and on multiple levels. First, in terms of its content, O’Donnell Heffington lays out a compelling history, arguing for a revision in the way mothering is perceived, valued, and recognized. This is a history for anyone and everyone, regardless of their position on child-bearing, motherhood, or womanhood at large. Each chapter addresses a form of mothering or motherhood, expectations around these roles as they have changed through time, and historical factors which have influenced our collective image of Mother today. Throughout Without Children there are stories of mothers — of diverse kinds — embedded, evidence of O’Donnell Heffington’s arguments and research. The result is an intimate narrative history, one which toggles seamlessly between micro-history, prosopography, and discussions of the larger contexts of religion, politics, and gender.

Second, Without Children impresses in terms of its prose and language; it flows at a comfortable, easy pace, delivering what is a deeply contentious issue in straightforward terms. O’Donnell Heffington clearly has an agenda; what writer and what non-fiction does not? — but the book, to its credit, lacks superciliousness, pedantry, and jargon. Given the controversial topic and the heated debates among many women and mothers regarding having children or not, Without Children performs a miracle of balance.

At the root of the debate and ultimately at the root of this book, is the question and discussion of the constituency of womanhood as it is understood in most Euro-American Western societies. What makes a woman? (Some would have us believe it is motherhood.) What constitutes a mother then? (Some challenge the notion of birth and biology.) In a moment of gender fluidity and revolution of gender identity, Without Children asks us to suspend our ingrained understandings of gender to consider other definitions of motherhood and womanhood.