“Poignant, funny, sensitive, but most importantly, heart-stoppingly true. This is an outstanding collection of stories, from some of the finest writers, which gets right to the dark heart of what it really means to be a mother. I loved it.” - Clover Stroud
‘An outstanding collection of essays from some of the finest writers’ - Grazia
‘Moving and vital, this is the kind of book that could well make a difference to someone’s life . . .every mother should read it.’ - Laura Pearson, author of I Wanted You to Know
The Best, Most Awful Job
Twenty Writers Talk Honestly About Motherhood
Edited by Katherine May
Elliott & Thompson / 5 August 2021 / £9.99 / PB
What does it mean to be a mother?
Twenty writers speak out in this searingly honest, diverse and powerful collection.
Motherhood is life-changing. Disorientating, overwhelming, intense on every level, it can leave you questioning everything you thought you knew about yourself. Yet despite more women speaking out in recent years about the reality of their experiences – good, bad and in between – all too often it’s the same stories getting told, while key parts of the maternal experience still remain unspeakable and unseen. There are a million different ways to be a mother, yet the vision we see in books, on screen and online overwhelmingly fails to represent this commonplace yet extraordinary experience for most of us. It’s time to broaden the conversation.
The Best, Most Awful Job is a deeply personal collection about motherhood in all its raw, heart-wrenching, gloriously impossible forms. Overturning assumptions, breaking down myths and shattering stereotypes, it challenges perceptions of what it means to be a mother, bringing together a diverse range of bold and brilliant writers and asking you to listen.
Some highlights include:
Hollie McNish on her trademark outspoken and sane form
Josie George writing beautifully and carefully about mothering yourself and your child when your body won’t play ball
Michelle Adams on meeting your adoptive child and learning to be a mother
Peggy Riley on the lost heartbeat of a deeply yearned-for child
MiMi Aye on the pain of her children being seen as ‘other’ in their own country
Leah Hazard - practising midwife and author of Hard Pushed - on the scars our bodies hold as mothers...
Saima Mir on the taboo that is maternal rage
Stories also cover: being unable to conceive, step-parenting, losing a child, single parenthood, being an autistic mother, being a reluctant home-schooler and the many ways in which race, class, disability, religion and sexuality affect motherhood.
‘A wonderful anthology. I enjoyed it so much – the honesty, intelligence, fury and tenderness of the essays; and, importantly and refreshingly, the range of voices and stories it contains. I only wished each essay were longer so that I might spend more time with each of these writers and their worlds.’
Liz Berry, author of The Republic of Motherhood and winner of the Forward Prize
‘If I had added a Post-it Note to every sentence in this book that made me laugh, wince in recognition, or faintly well up, I would have turned it into a paper porcupine.’
Ceri Radford, Independent
‘Absorbing stories from different women… Multiracial and non-binary perspectives are among the welcomingly diverse inclusions here.’
Jude Rogers, New Statesman
‘In this poignant, vital collection of essays, twenty writers meditate on what it means to be a mother… a real treat’
Elizabeth Morris, Crib Notes
‘These essays, diverse in the experiences of their authors but all hitting upon a near-universal truth, tackle beautifully [the challenge of] trying to balance creativity with childcare’
Sarah Langford, author of In Your Defence
‘I’ve been really missing the company of other mothers so this was a very good read… this book covers so much. The essay that really blew me away was Peggy Riley on not becoming a mother.’
Samantha Ellis, author of How To Be A Heroine
“Searingly honest, diverse and powerful collection about motherhood in all its raw, heart-wrenching, gloriously impossible forms”
Irish Examiner
‘All the pain, power and privilege of being a mother is here in these tales of step-parenting; being unable to conceive; having six children; single parenthood; and of how race, class, disability, religion and sexuality affect our perceptions of motherhood’
Caroline Sanderson, The Bookseller Editor’s Choice
ABOUT Katherine May
Edited and curated by Katherine May, an author of fiction and memoir whose most recent works have shown a willingness to deal frankly with the more ambiguous aspects of parenting. In The Electricity of Every Living Thing she explored the challenges – and joys – of being an autistic mother, and sparked a debate about the right of mothers to ask for solitude. In her New York Times bestseller, Wintering, she looked at the ways in which parenting can lead to periods of isolation and stress. She lives with her husband and son in Whitstable, Kent.