Still Born
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4.7 • 3 Ratings
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- $24.99
Publisher Description
"Both uplifting and gut-wrenching, often at the same time . . . At its heart, it is a story about the many different ways to be a family, and it made me reflect on what an honor it is to care for someone you truly love." -Dua Lipa
Shortlisted for the 2023 International Booker Prize
A profound novel about motherhood, friendship, and the power of community from "one of the leading lights in contemporary Latin American literature" (Valeria Luiselli, author of Lost Children Archive).
Alina and Laura are independent and career-driven women in their mid-thirties, neither of whom have built their future around the prospect of a family. Laura is so determined not to become a mother that she has taken the drastic decision to have her tubes tied. But when she announces this to her friend, she learns that Alina has made the opposite decision and is preparing to have a child of her own.
Alina's pregnancy shakes the women's lives, first creating distance and then a remarkable closeness between them. When Alina's daughter survives childbirth – after a diagnosis that predicted the opposite – and Laura becomes attached to her neighbor's son, both women are forced to reckon with the complexity of their emotions, their needs, and the needs of the people who are dependent upon them.
In prose that is as gripping as it is insightful, Guadalupe Nettel explores maternal ambivalence with a surgeon's touch, carefully dissecting the contradictions that make up the lived experiences of women.
APPLE BOOKS REVIEW
We were haunted by this quietly stunning novel about motherhood and the women who choose it, reject it, or lose it. Mexico City doctoral student Laura has chosen not to have children, a decision supported by her closest friend, Alina. When Alina decides to pursue motherhood herself, a serious complication threatens the pregnancy, drawing both women into the messy emotional reality of what they thought they wanted. Author Guadalupe Nettel sets these deeply personal stories against a constant hum of fear and instability. As Laura bonds with her struggling single-mom neighbour, Doris, and her young son, Nico, it becomes clear how motherhood is shaped by violence, inequality, and the fragility of everyday life. Still Born is a novel that asks what it means to care for others in an uncertain world.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Two Mexican friends wrestle with their feelings about motherhood in the ruminative latest from Nettel (After the Winter). Laura and Alina, both in their 30s and living in Paris, decided years earlier not to have children. Laura is devoted to earning a PhD in literature and Alina runs an art gallery. After Laura has her tubes tied, Alina returns to Mexico City and decides to try to have a child with her partner, Aurelio. Laura is aghast at her friend's decision to have a child and initially keeps a distance. Later, after returning to Mexico City herself and learning of Alina's infertility, Laura supports her. Alina eventually becomes pregnant, but is devastated to learn that her baby suffers from a neurological condition; her doctor predicts she will be stillborn and recommends that the couple attend grief counseling. A side plot involving Laura's single-parent neighbor, who has a volatile relationship with her six-year-old son, adds to the narrative's varied perspectives on motherhood. Using spare, potent prose, Nettel mines the complexities of feminism, caregiving, and what it means to love unconditionally ("The more we love a person the more fragile and insecure we feel because of them," Laura reflects on her friendship with Alina). This will resonate with readers.
