Mass Mothering
A Novel
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- $14.99
Publisher Description
A haunting, indelible novel of collective grief, resistance, and the radical, life-affirming virtue of testimony
A. is an amateur translator, living alone in an unforgiving, late-capitalist metropolis. Adrift and burdened by debt following a medical trauma, she makes rent caring for a young boy who is not and could never be her own. Her nights are spent on the dance floor, chasing spontaneous connection. There, she encounters N., who shares her numbed state and sometimes her bed.
Among N.’s meager possessions, A. comes across a slim book about an unnamed foreign town of disappearing boys. The book, Field Notes, documents the stories of a community of mothers who assemble to mourn their missing sons together. A. is transfixed by this collective chorus of primal grief, the mothers’ preternatural strength, and their intuitive care for one another. When a near-assault stuns A. out of her inertia, she takes off for the city where Field Notes was written in search of its author and the end of the story. But A.’s digging leads her instead to the traces of a murdered poet, a mysterious woman whose legacy will intersect unexpectedly and pivotally with A.’s own life.
Poignant and profoundly humane, Mass Mothering is told through layered voices, written fragments, and recorded testimonies. It is a luminous story of the mutuality of grief, the aftershocks of violence in a globalized era, and the world-bending force of a mother’s love.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Bruni (The Night Gwen Stacy Died) explores themes of motherhood, translation, and political displacement in her engrossing latest. At the heart of the novel is a work of journalism and oral history called Field Notes by late author Tomas Petritus, about the forced disappearances of young men and boys in Petritus's unnamed home country. Bruni alternates chapters from Field Notes, translated by her narrator, A., with A.'s own story as a 33-year-old nanny recovering from her cancer-related hysterectomy and grappling with the fact that she won't be able to have children. She finds solace with a new friend, N., a native speaker of Petritus's unspecified language, who shares his copy of Field Notes with her. A. is fascinated with Petritus's depiction of the mothers of the disappeared: when a boy goes missing, the mothers follow a ritual, gathering "to embrace, recite prayers, throw rocks," and "take turns mothering whoever is at her weakest." Determined to learn more, she earns a grant to visit the late Petritus's country and translate the book into English. By not specifying where Petritus is from, Bruni allows the reader to imagine the disappearances could have happened anywhere. It's a smart move, as it focuses the reader's attention on the novel's thematic connections and resonance in the real world. Layered and moving, this one hits with startling force.
