Customer Reviews

Brood Bitch: A Mother's Reflection

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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.

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.

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.

A great tale for those committed to (=in love with) dogs and the trials and tribulations of life with them