Great with Child: Letters to a Young Mother [Hardcover]

Beth Ann Fennelly (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 17, 2006

A toddler's mother, both an intimate guide and an affectionate coach, writes to a pregnant friend about the transforming experience of motherhood.

"These are letters I would have welcomed when I was pregnant," says Beth Ann Fennelly, as she seeks to go beyond the nuts and bolts or sentimentality of other parenting literature. The letters range in tone from serious to sisterly, from light-hearted to downright funny. Some answer specific questions such as decisions about pain medication; others muse about the identity shift a woman encounters when she enters Mommyland or address our responsibility to the natural world. Still others explore the magic and mysteries of childbirth, the wonders of language, and the exhilaration (also the ambivalence) about a baby's first steps to independence.

Here are modern letters written in an old-fashioned way, not as hasty e-mails but more slowly and filtered through the sensibility of a spirited, fearless poet. Though written for a specific person, their themes are universal, inviting all mothers to join the grand circle of giving and receiving advice about children.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Poet Fennelly shares, in letters to a formerly pregnant friend, the joys and sorrows of pregnancy and motherhood. Fennelly's letters read like prose, but they're also loaded with information on all aspects of pregnancy-cravings, fear of childbirth, anxieties over health and a changing body-as well as insights on relationships and child rearing. In one letter, she shares a powerful and personal story about how "family secrets...have a way of rotting a family's foundation," and in another she writes about the pleasant surprise of discovering that motherhood "is tremendously sweet, which we all know; it's also tremendously funny, which isn't so well recognized." The letters are arranged chronologically, so the topics ebb and flow according to Fennelly's moods and daily experiences, so the letter celebrating her daughter's victory over potty training is followed by a letter revealing "the erotics of motherhood," which is followed by a treatise on maintaining a tranquil home after baby's arrival. Expecting and new mothers looking for short doses of inspiration will find a year's worth here.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

Fennelly loved to play school as a child, went on to teach, and originally addressed these letters to a former student. She found them so helpful that she shared them with another woman pregnant for the first time, who in turn sent them to another. These are no hastily written, lowercase, misspelled, emotional e-mails. Fennelly used, as she wrote in the first letter, "the weight of a pen and thick paper under my hand" to lead her "to a slower pace, slower thoughts, to handpicked words." The first recipient was computer-less, anyway, in Alaska, where her husband's fellowship landed her. In subsequent letters, Fennelly shares the experience of attending a Quaker wedding, her own odd dreams during pregnancy, the joy and the literal shittiness of motherhood, and the sweetness and ease of long-term friendships with people seen only occasionally: "We're able to move so quickly to deep levels of conversation. We don't need to fill each other in on backstory." A reflective, transformative book capable of enlightening beyond parenthood. Whitney Scott
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 224 pages
• Publisher: W. W. Norton; 1 edition (April 17, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0393061825
• ISBN-13: 978-0393061826
• Product Dimensions: 7.1 x 0.8 x 8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (15 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #644,751 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars As to whether or not May 2, 2006

By Graham R. Lewis

Format:Hardcover

this book will help expectant mothers see their, um, "condition" in a different light I can't attest, for I am neither female nor a great lover of children. But I can say this: I found this book extremely interesting. It is very well-written, full of remarkable ruminations on the connections between the life of a writer and the life of a mother; it is funny, and it does give a beery guy like me an insight into how women could possibly enjoy what I view as the "torture of reproduction." Fennelly does not shy away from the sensuality between mother and child or the sexuality between mother and father, and that lends much import to the more sentimental passages. This is the kind of book that I didn't think could possibly interest me, but Fennelly's writing is always full of surprises. And good surprises at that. This book should not be designated as merely "pregnant chick lit," as it's far better than that. I think it's true benefit may be in helping men find footing in at least one corridor of the labyrinth of the female mind. I've lent it to several of my male friends (single male friends), and they've all expressed the same surprise at finding this topic handled in such a way that they wanted to keep reading. Not bad for a book whose title would have caused a shiver to run up my spine not that long ago. Great With Child is a great read, and you'll find it entertaining regardless of your ability or desire to participate in the propagation of our species.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Beautiful Book November 18, 2006

By M. W. Garvey

Format:Hardcover

This book brought me to tears many times. As the mother of a 12 week old baby, it was so meaningful to have my feelings articulated in such a beautiful way. I will keep my copy and send new ones to mothers of new babies. (I think I appreciated it more having read it with a newborn rather than while pregnant).

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Lovely March 7, 2013

By Abigail R. Cook

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase

These days, it seems like every book for expectant mothers is meant to terrify you. From what can go wrong with your baby, to what is wrong with our hospital system, sometimes it can make a woman crazy. This book is the antidote to all of the crazy out there. Ms. Fennelly's prose is wonderful (she is a poet, after all) and it's light, heartwarming reading. She talks with both love and frankness about the changes a baby brings to one's life, and at the end of the book you feel uplifted rather than scared to death.