WOW. YES. MORE.
I was desperate for books about women like me; thirsty, overwhelmed moms caught in the disorienting madness of who they now were, who they used to be, and who they might become;“happily married” moms who were ravenous, unable to recocile their need for freedom with the need to keep their children and families free from harm; messy moms who were highly functioning but internally on fire, in turmoil, and deeply conflicted about patriarchy and the privilege of stay-at-home motherhood. Back in 2014, when I began drafting TO JONES, I couldn’t find any books like this. Even in 2019, when I finished an early draft, I had a hard time finding comps that would show agents and editors that my work was part of a larger conversation, that there were readers for such work. A handful of agents said they liked my writing and the story but didn’t know how to sell it. All I heard, at the time, was No. Now, I understand they’d gone out of their way to share their positive rejections with me. It mattered. An agent in London came very close to representing JONES in 2023. Her generous feedback resulted in a much stronger, more cohesive draft, very near the draft that will be published. She too was a no in the end, but hers came with a standing invitation to submit future work to her. “I want to read anything and everything you write,” she’d said. I love her for that and still harbor a strange sense of loyalty toward her.
Near as I can tell, a shift in publishing occurred post pandemic. I discovered three novels about women’s desire, wives wrestling with whether or not to blow up their happy marriages: The Paper Palace (2021) by Miranda Cowley Heller, which was how I found that U.K. agent; Fault Lines (2021) by Emily Itami; and The Lifestyle (2022) by Taylor Hahn. They weren’t close comps for JONES, but we were, at least, in the same galaxy. These books led me to Three Women (2019) by Lisa Taddeo. Despite it being nonfiction, this was my bullseye for JONES. Based on a decade of in-depth reporting on the sex lives of, yup, three women, this book is real, raw, heartbreaking, funny, and literary. The women Taddeo writes about are, like any of us, like me, like my narrator Jones, flawed. Had this book been around fifteen years earlier, I may have avoided feeling so painfully alone as a wife and mother. Which brings me to today.
Today — JOY! — you can’t throw a set of kegel balls without hitting a novel about the complex overwhelm of restless, nearly unhinged mothers. Mother characters are rising up to burn it all down. Mothers are hitting the road without maps. Mothers are being gently coaxed from the domicile by loving, often super “safe”, partners who know the walls are crumbling. These women characters are weird, flawed, sexually frank, often funny, sometimes heartbreaking, and, much of the time, shouldering complicated grief. I clock similarities between these exciting new books and my lump of an unpublished novel that’s been lurching around my desk for the last ten years. Look, some of us may never be published. Maybe the work isn’t ready. Maybe it’s bad. Maybe the blowjob scene is too graphic or the narrator is annoying or she objectifies people too much. But I know as long as there are mothers raising children, the restless, nearly unhinged mother-story will live on, especially in the U.S. where few supports exist for us. Once upon a time, they believed women didn’t want to fuck. As if it were factual. We need each others stories. We need to know we’re not alone.
Here are a few of my favorite books about womanhood, motherhood, desire, escapism, temptation, guilt, relationship dynamics, and all the rest of it. It’s never one thing. And it’s never fucking easy.
Nightbitch (2023) by Rachel Yoder
Similar to JONES, this narrator is caught in an about-to-blow domestic pressure cooker
Rich undercurrents of heat and rage
Identity crisis, unrealized career
Escapism
Desire
Mother-guilt
Inability to be “normal”
Hilariously sharp observations
Feral imaginings
Married to a “good guy”
2025 Oregon Book Award Winner
We Were the Universe (202
4), Kimberly King Parsons
Similar to JONES, this narrator is a complete horndog who imagines fucking everyone she sees; positive nods to masturbation; refreshing!
Grief uniquely stitched into story
Mother-guilt
Breast feeding
Escapism
Hilarious observations
Of modest financial means
Churchy background
Married to “good guy”
All Fours (2024) by Miranda July
Unbulletable. Three times I’ve read this voice-driven, exeedingly bold exploration of freedom, escapism, desire, career, marriage, motherhood, perimenopause, grief, the highly-cultivated self, the human condition, and — from a dazzling number of angles — the human body; I’ve lost track of how many times I’ve listened to it. July narrates the audiobook, and, as a performer, I’ve made careful study of the subtlety of her delivery. She’s a master of nuance. This turns my nipples to fucking diamonds. Some readers complain the narrator is “selfish,” “ageist,” “fat phobic,” and “a liar.” While I don’t disagree with these descriptors, flaws are irresistible to me. If a character, or actual human, is to resonate with me, complex flaws are required; this narrator is bursting with them. She too is married to a “good guy.”
