A Better Woman : A Memoir of Motherhood [Paperback]

Susan Johnson (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 19, 2003

Acclaimed novelist Susan Johnson found, at age thirty-five, that her desire to have a baby became overwhelming. She had no inkling what motherhood would cost -- or give -- her. But as she went on to experience pregnancy and birth, and their impact on her marriage, health, and heart, she recorded it all. In this hauntingly lovely account, Johnson portrays a woman transformed by motherhood, and a writer forever changed by a widening chasm of experience. Her initial ecstasy jostles against bewilderment, rage, and despair, however, when she develops a rare complication of childbirth; she is "a one-woman catastrophe, a small ruined country." She is also burning to get words on paper. The result, A Better Woman, should be required reading for every woman hungry to give birth -- and every mother yearning to have her deepest feelings heard.

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

Before she had children, Australian novelist Johnson believed that she could easily juggle pen and paper with formula and nappies. But the real story here is not so much her attempt to manage motherhood and work as it is her ability to do all that while coping with an injury she sustained during childbirth. She describes how a fistula (a tiny tunnel running from the inside of her anus to the inside of her vagina), created by a third-degree tear, caused her physical and emotional distress postpartum. Told in crisp, writerly prose, her story is as poignant as it is aggravating this reviewer could not believe that Johnson was not more bitter toward her national healthcare doctors, who instructed her to walk with the tear to another wing of the hospital to breast-feed her baby. While Johnson seems to take her injury in stride as merely a terrible byproduct of a beautiful miracle, one hopes that her story teaches others to question the authority of doctors. A good addition to larger collections, especially where there is interest in birth-related complications.
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Booklist

The touchstone for Johnson's memoir is motherhood, motherhood fraught with all its intensely personal and extensively commonplace charms and perils. After the birth of her first son in her late thirties, the author's life changed dramatically. Johnson, a successful writer, was--as most women are--spectacularly unprepared for the emotional, physical, and psychological toll that carrying and nurturing a baby would have on her work, her home life, and her relationship with her husband. By the time she found herself unexpectedly pregnant with her second child, she felt competent, enthusiastic, and ready to accept the challenge posed by her expanding family. Unfortunately, life threw her another curve, and a life-altering childbirth complication forced her to take stock of her experiences as both a woman and a mother. Although readers may not be familiar with the Australian Johnson's work, the universal nature of her subject matter will appeal to a wide cross section of women. Margaret Flanagan
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 272 pages
• Publisher: Washington Square Press (August 19, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0743432975
• ISBN-13: 978-0743432979
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.3 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7.7 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,300,568 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars A Conversation, July 18, 2011

By 

madbee (Colorado) - See all my reviews

This review is from: A Better Woman : A Memoir of Motherhood (Paperback)

Susan Johnson shares her childbirth experiences and the unexpected complications she endured afterwards. This book is also the stoy of a single writer adjusting to being a married woman with two babies and an illness, who is still a writer-- but a different person. "A Better Woman," as the title says. In the first pages of the Forward, Johnson talks about how she went from feeling in control of her body to the horror of needing a colostomy. I read this and thought, I'll skip the really graphic medical stuff and wondered if I really wanted to continue reading.

I continued and I was glad I did. Johnson's voice is self-reflective, acknowledging the memoirist's dilemma of always selecting what to write and what to leave out. She's opinionated and detailed. Although she questions her openness, I found her writing candid and heartbreaking. Johnson is changed by motherhood and her medical ordeals. Reading this book felt like a friend sharing the details of her day to day life. Her writing is elegant and spare. At times she stops her narrative and addresses the reader directly:

"Perhaps by now, all these years later, you might have even found that book of my personal way washed up on some remainder table or library shelf. Inside its pages you may be able to detect tears, the scent of milk, a baby's howling. You may feel the flame of my life race up your fingers and know a little of what it feels like to feel burned.

"For in its pages my actual waking life smolders still, giving off the kind of smoke which always lingers in the wake of an incendiary blaze.

"Reader can you smell it? Can you?"

5.0 out of 5 stars Poetic truth-telling about motherhood, May 5, 2009

By 

TemmaD (London England) - See all my reviews

This review is from: A Better Woman : A Memoir (Hardcover)

Reading Susan Johnson's lyrically written account of the unexpected maternal wave that swept over her in the middle of her autonomous writer's life, I was brought straight back to the shock and power of my own early motherhood. Although I never suffered the physical disabilities Johnson describes, I understood perfectly the dual nature of love and drowning that Johnson experiences. There are so many hidden aspects of womanhood - so many unofficial stories. That mix of passion and powerlessness, that learning to relinquish control and the mourning of it, are universal experiences that are not often addressed and should be. If you want to read a very beautifullly written account of a real woman's experience of motherhood written by a powerful writer, this is the book.

3.0 out of 5 stars It gets better at the halfway point, March 6, 2009

By 

thewaspyfeminist (Middle of the woods, VA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: A Better Woman : A Memoir of Motherhood (Paperback)

At the age of 35, Susan Johnson realizes that she desperately wants to be a mother. At 38 she is pregnant with her first child, moving back her to homeland of Australia, and getting ready to "settle." Although deliriously happy with her new baby and new life, she realizes that something isn't quite right and is soon diagnosed with a recto-vaginal fistula, something that is practically unheard of in the Western world (although prevalent in developing countries). This memoir is Susan's story--about life as a new, first-time, older mother. Settling down with a man who isn't really the settling down type. Attempting to remain a surviving writer. And dealing with a rare medical condition that can be painful, not to mention embarrassing and humiliating.

I really did not enjoy the book at first. It wasn't until about halfway through that I really started to not only get into the book, but really even cared about her story. She doesn't really talk about the fistula until the midway point, and I guess I was just waiting for that. It's probably also important to mention that I am not really a fan of "literary memoirs" (as my sister says: it's probably really great. I did not think the first half was great). I prefer the more gritty, real writing to the pretentious, flowery writing that she has. Looking back, I can see that the first half of the book was probably fine; it just didn't really have anything to do with the reason I picked up the book in the first place. One thing I loved, though; is that Johnson has some wonderful phrases that are immensely quotable. Example: "Having children exposes you. I will know who you are when I see how you wish your children to live." And "Isn't it a form of arrogance to assume that misfortune will not personally visit you, or to allow yourself to believe the man who says his love for you is endless as space?" I really liked that she got into a bit of feminist theory and quoted/discussed Germaine Greer. I also thought she had a wonderful observation on the recent prominence of what she describes as the "earth-mother hierarchy"--where the focus on getting back to natural childbirth, home births and midwives forgets that "birth involves danger." Overall, I enjoyed the book a lot. And when I forget about the first half, I love it.