Baby Love [Bargain Price] [Hardcover]

Rebecca Walker (Author)

Book Description

Release date: March 22, 2007

From the international bestselling author of Black, White, and Jewish comes a "wonderfully insightful" (Associated Press) book that's destined to become a motherhood classic. Now in trade.

Like many women her age, thirty-four-year-old Rebecca Walker was brought up to be skeptical of motherhood. As an adult she longed for a baby but feared losing her independence. In this very smart memoir, Walker explores some of the larger sociological trends of her generation while delivering her own story about the emotional and intellectual transformation that led her to motherhood.

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

The author of Black, White and Jewish gives voice to the uncertainty of her generation in a powerful new memoir. In journal format, beginning with the day her pregnancy is confirmed and ending as she and her partner bring their son home, Walker tells of her physical and emotional journey toward motherhood, poignantly reflecting on the ambivalence that has delayed her dream of having a child for years. Like many 20- and 30-somethings, she was raised to view partnership and parenthood as the least empowering choices in an infinite array of options. This tension comes to the fore as Walker's mother, Alice Walker, opposes her decision to have a baby and challenges her account of their relationship in Black, White and Jewish. Alice ends their relationship and removes Rebecca from her will, and Rebecca endures a tumultuous pregnancy, estranged from her mother as she prepares to become one herself. Elusive health complications arise, and she hops from doctor to doctor, ever wary of Western medicine. Through a lengthy litany of decisions (midwife versus M.D., stroller versus "travel system"), she Googles her way to information overload. At the end of this nine-month mental tug-of-war, she emerges changed: a meat eater, a committed partner with a renewed faith in intimacy, a new woman plus-one. Walker's story is accessible and richly textured, told with humor, wit and warmth. (Mar.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Review

"Thoughtful." -Entertainment Weekly "A powerful new memoir...Accessible and richly textured, told with humor, wit, and warmth." -Publishers Weekly "Moving, wise, and deeply honest, Baby Love has illuminated a crucial question for our times." -Danzy Senna, author of Caucasia "Shares the earthy, spontaneous form of Anne Lamott's child-rearing classic, Operating Instructions." -The New York Times

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 224 pages
• Publisher: Riverhead Hardcover (March 22, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1594489432
• ASIN: B000VSEDXG
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6.1 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (53 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,062,063 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

58 of 72 people found the following review helpful

2.0 out of 5 stars Birdcage Lining March 25, 2007

By Mother

Format:Hardcover

The narcissim, banality and lack of intelligent thought in this book is simply stunning. I am a new mother, and I cannot fathom how this book would have been useful to me during pregnancy; certainly not in retrospect. Because I also share a lot of Walker's racial/sexual/class/political experience I bought this immediately. I was deeply offended by a lot of her claims about feminism and what she insinuates about lesbian vs. heterosexual parenting, but truly jaw-dropping is her assertion about biological vs. non-biological parenting. She is so unable to get past herself, and so unable to recognize that her first stab at "parenting" was more playing house with an immature rocker and less the stuff of intentional motherhood. Perhaps that is part of what undermines the bond with her son that she then goes on to universalize. The revelations about the breach with her mother are frankly embarassing, and again, feel self-serving--like a desperate stab to hook a readership that she can't otherwise win and hold.

17 of 19 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Ambivalent Review August 5, 2007

By J. Aragon VINE™ VOICE

Format:Hardcover

I read this book in two sittings and have meant to write the review for several days now. I can't decide if it mostly narcissistice drivel or just occasionally dripping with narcissism. I enjoyed some parts of the book, but my copy is filled with comments penciled in the margins. I'm still processing the book.

I will say that some parts of this book would have made more sense if the reader read her previous book, _Black, White and Jewish_ where she tears into her mother and offers a memoir that will make you vacillate between feeling sorry for her and then wondering how in the hell she could be so damn egocentric.

That said, this book is like the book end to the previous book with the diatribe(s) against her famous mother. She is obviously working through her issues regarding too much freedom that she was given by her parents. What has troubled me between those two particular books (and I have read her other books/anthologies and many of her essays) is the way that she places full blame or most of the blame for her ambivalence and sense of not being loved on her mother.

Is it easier for her to attack her mother or does she just make it easier? I'm not sure what the answer is, but I think that she is overly harsh or perhaps not harsh enough on her dad.

Granted, her mother has said some unbelievably cruel things to her. Her mother was trying to raise her w/ choice, independence, and in the process didn't give her enough attention. And, it appears that RW blames her ambivalence and failed relationships wholeheartedly on her mother. I could have done with less of the Alice Walker blaming and more of her musings.

What really troubled me w/ this book was the poor editing. The editor should have dealt with the tired cliches and woefully eyerolling colloquialisms that were nothing short of over the top. Many of her observations made me think: btdt as mother of two children, but also in terms of the myriad of other (better) written memoirs of motherhood or pregnancy.

I'll suggest this book to others, but w/ a caveat. What I'm really looking forward to is discussing the book with other feminist mothers. I'm RW's age and didn't have the ambivalence that she shares, well, and not the privileges of an Ivy League education and the vast world travelling! It's worth reading, but there are countless other books that are ten times better: anything by Ariel Gore, for instance.

56 of 70 people found the following review helpful

1.0 out of 5 stars A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering...Narcissism April 5, 2007

By cmcd

Format:Hardcover

What a stunning waste of twenty bucks. As a 36 year old woman contemplating motherhood I expected to find thoughtful musings and good company on the journey. Instead, a "dear diary" of jumbled confessions from an admittedly privileged but incredibly solipsistic narrator. Join her pity party as she boo-hoos her way through a hospital stay, a search for a physician/caregiver, the loss of her figure and sex appeal---never mind she indulges in more navel-gazing and food than any pregnant woman has a right to (explaining to her stepson, for example, that at 16 weeks there are just certain things she can't do, like climb stairs. Or focus on others. Or put her fork down--she gains 35 pounds in 20 weeks and claims her job is to sit around "rubbing her belly and glowing.") The few honest confessions and discussions are by far overshadowed by her need to indulge and reassure herself that she is a good and holy creature, that her exes and famous mother done her so horribly wrong, and that nothing on the planet--partners, careers, even longed-for adopted children--is so incredibly sublime worthy of exultation and love as giving birth to your "own" child. A supreme disappointment from a bright young scholar from whom I expected so much more.