Brood Bitch: A Mother's Reflection [Hardcover]

Celia Townsend-Wells (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 1, 2002

Brood Bitch is a mother's reflection inspired by her hand-raising a litter of Pembroke Welsh corgis whose own mother died after a Caesarian delivery. Devastated by the loss of her only companion and awed by the task of saving the puppies, the narrator is surprised to discover she enjoys this exclusive commitment. Her education, career, marriage, and mothering are all behind her: she is retired, her ex-husband is dead, her daughter is independent. She broods on these past commitments—usually conflicted—in light of her success doing the job of a canine mother. Parallels between the birth and care of the puppies and her daughter keep coming to her consciousness, helping her to understand her sense of failure as a human mother. This is not what she expected when she began showing and breeding corgis. It was a hobby she cultivated in middle age when she was well established in her job but uncertain as a single mother, one that incorporated her love of dogs, her need of an interest outside her profession, and her desire to give up the dating game. Most of all she wanted it to provide a bonding experience with her daughter. It did not, at least at the time. Her bond with corgis comes to supersede all others—ironically through the death of her brood bitch—when she is bound exclusively to the puppies. Nurturing them leads to profound introspection, which eventually heals the pain of her insecure mothering. Beyond that, it enables her to appreciate the vast scope of motherhood in both corgis and women—its variations, illusions, ideals, realities, frustrations, rewards. The narrator realizes that she is a mother for life. Even her bitch was for two hours, during which she never saw her babies. Having mothered them so happily herself and bonded so closely with the one she kept, she is able to forge a bond with her daughter through links from their past that extend into the present. This is a slow process that may take most of a life re-lived, but rearing the puppies makes it possible for her. Her final recompense is a guarded hope that the lovely young bitch who never knew her natural mother will succeed in the role and provide them both with a corgi companion for the rest of their lives. It becomes a reality under conditions even more rewarding than her mothering of this brood bitch, because she now recognizes so many of the complications of motherhood. She at last observes a mother superior, whose existence among women requires a vow of celibacy.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"A unique perspective on issues of motherhood, comparing the risks and responsibilities of mothers across the boundaries of species...." -- Jacket blurb, Shari Benstock, author of Women of the Left Bank and No Gifts from Chance, A Biography of Edith Wharton.

"One woman's meditation on...motherhood...a lost bitch, hand-raised puppies, and an oh-so-humanly flawed mother-daughter relationship." -- The Corgi Cryer, Winter, 2002

"This book is a must-read for anyone who has ever been challenged by the demands of 'motherhood'--canine or human...." -- Pembroke Welsh Corgi Club of America Magazine, Spring, 2003

From the Author

"All my yesteryears of book-mothering, gut-mothering, even park-mothering my daughter were wiped out when my brood bitch died. Then I was forced to become a good mother. It wasn't a skill I finally learned, an instinct that at last kicked in. It was an imperative with rewards I had never known."

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 147 pages
• Publisher: Purdue University Press (November 1, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1557532362
• ISBN-13: 978-1557532367
• Product Dimensions: 8.8 x 6.9 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.5 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,381,605 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Profound meditation on parent-child, human-animal bonds, December 11, 2002

By 

Paul A. Kobasa (Chicago, IL USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Brood Bitch: A Mother's Reflection (Hardcover)

A graceful and poignant meditation on mother love, mother work, the parent-child relationship, and the human-animal relationship. With great sensitivity and insight and no self pity, Wells reveals her own experiences first as a married and then single mother of a daughter, and as the surrogate mother of puppies who survive the death of their mother minutes after the puppies' birth. This book will move readers interested in the bonds between parents and children or humans and animals and the complexes of emotions and attitudes associated with these bonds.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Very worthwhile, April 25, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: Brood Bitch: A Mother's Reflection (Hardcover)

Wells' book can be read just for the story of her life with corgis or it can be read for the inner journey she takes in understanding motherhood. Short, but much food for thought. Well worth reading twice.

2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Courageous and Original, January 28, 2003

By 

Fiction Lover (East Coast) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Brood Bitch: A Mother's Reflection (Hardcover)

This book is moving, scrupulously honest, and sharply--perfectly--written. And it is original. I've never read another book quite like it.

The book impresses me as a spiritual autobiography, "spiritual" being, like most words, a metaphor, but gesturing toward the sacred in the widest sense. Life is sacred in that sense, and this book is about life and death. It reads as if the author has journeyed all her adulthood to find the sources of life, freedom, and joy, until she and those sources at last find each other.

The author seems to be inviting all her readers to share this deep discovery with her, whether they be family or friends or strangers. The concepts of "mothering" and "maternal" can often take on so much cultural baggage that their vital reality becomes obscured. In Brood Bitch: A Mother's Reflection, Celia Townsend Wells re-discovers bedrock realities through innovative and courageous introspection-and through fine writing.