A Woman's Battles and Transformations
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4.0 • 7 Ratings
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- $9.99
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- $9.99
Publisher Description
A searing and sympathetic portrait of a mother's liberation, from the acclaimed author of international bestsellers The End of Eddy and History of Violence.
Longlisted for the National Book Critics Circle (NBCC) Barrios Book in Translation Prize, A Woman's Battles and Transformations is Édouard Louis' intimate portrayal of his mother's escape from an oppressive marriage. Late one night, Louis received a call from his forty-five-year-old mother: "I did it. I left your father." In that moment, she was finally free.
This sharp, concise work reckons with the cruel systems that govern our lives—and the possibility of breaking free. A story of mothers and sons, history and heartbreak, politics and power, it is a necessary addition to the oeuvre of Édouard Louis, "one of France's most widely read and internationally successful novelists" (The New York Times Magazine). A must-read for lovers of French literature, literary memoirs, and feminist nonfiction.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In this penetrating work, French novelist Louis (History of Violence) turns a sharp yet forgiving gaze on the struggles of his mother, and the complicated bond he shared with her, "a coming together that started with our drifting apart." Slipping seamlessly between lyrical and academic modes of storytelling, he offers more of an impressionistic study than a biography of his mother, sketching the story of her life around the dreams she was forced to give up: leaving hospitality school in the 1950s at age 17 to have her first child; remaining in an unhappy marriage to have a second child; fleeing from one alcoholic husband to another; and raising three additional children. Woven throughout the narrative of unrelenting misfortune are moments of liberation—culminating in his mother's decision to leave the author's father—alongside Louis's own affecting account of grappling with his queerness ("What is a man? Virility, power, camaraderie with other boys? I never had any of that"), long a point of contention between mother and son. As he recounts the "fragments of tenderness" that eventually led them to reconcile, Louis delivers an incisive portrait of the ways oppression and social forces brought chaos to their lives, and how they found freedom through compassion. This slim account has serious substance.
