Reflections on Infertility, Family, and Creating a Bountiful Life: A Memoir
August 30, 2021
“My uterus and I have been at odds for forever,” writes essayist Moss (The Subway Stops at Bryant Park) in this powerful account of her decades-long battle with infertility. Moss doesn’t pull any punches when it comes to the physical and emotional ramifications of her three miscarriages—the first of which occurred when she was 41—each detailed as a devastating and distinctly gory affair. “I have spent a lot of my life cleaning up after myself in fear and shame,” she writes. Her struggle to bring a child to full term was eventually explained when she was diagnosed with a uterine hemangioma, an extremely rare, benign tumor, which led to her decision to have a hysterectomy. When she resolved to write about the surgery online, she was met with an outpouring of similar stories from friends and strangers. “Each person’s grief is an ocean wide,” she reflects, “forced into a thimble.” In poetic language that’s by turns blunt and tender, Moss chronicles how she and her husband weathered their sorrow and surfaced from it, dignity still intact, their love “made up of the things we couldn’t give to one another, but also full of how hard we tried.” This is as an enriching addition to the canon of literature around infertility.
August 27, 2021
After short story writer Moss (Subway Stops at Bryant Park) begins bleeding uncontrollably, a round of hospital visits and testing return a diagnosis of uterine hemangioma and a recommended solution of a hysterectomy. This memoir of Moss's surgery and recovery explores infertility, miscarriage, and women's experiences of health care and gives an equal amount of space to the healing and joy the author finds in the world around her (including her house's resident praying mantis) and reflections on her relationships with her mother, who shepherds Moss through her slow recovery, and her grandmother, a former New Orleans belle who offered Moss a calm space when she was young and overwhelmed. Moss's meditations on questions her experience have raised are full of calm maturity and quiet humor and give this book an appeal beyond its expected audience. How does one find peace when their body turns against them? How does one carry their grief? Who holds a family's secrets and stories when the lineage comes to an end? VERDICT This memoir is full of sensitive thoughts on childlessness and infertility. Moss's contemplations on life in general will resonate with women who are seeking peace and meaning in their own lives.--Kathleen McCallister, William & Mary Libs., Williamsburg, VA
Copyright 2021 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.
Starred review from September 1, 2021
A moving, well-rendered portrait of the seriously ailing artist. Moss starts the first chapter with a definition of the word exsanguinate, chronicling how she was literally bleeding out in her creative writing class. From that bloody beginning, the author delivers an engaging, even charming memoir. At 52, she had known the grief of miscarriage and infertility for a decade, partly alleviated by her husband's excellent suggestion: "Hey, what if we just tried to be happy anyway? I mean we can't make the sadness go away, but maybe we can be happy too, at the same time?" Her alarming bleeding only increased in severity, opening a long season of incapacity, surgery, recovery, relapse, and, finally, healing. Throughout, it feels like Moss is taking our hands and allowing us to accompany her on this journey. Her careful, lovely sentences and good-humored and thoughtful observations seem to be as much a part of her healing as her 84-year-old mother, who came to care for her, her kind, hardworking husband, and the team of doctors she sees so often: "It gets so that I am comfortable having a room full of men bending down between my legs and looking in there like I am a car with my hood up. Get so comfortable in fact that I feel like I could walk around the doctor's office half-naked and not feel self-conscious." Another key figure is the author's late grandmother, whom she only knew for one year when she was 6 years old but whose memory inspires warmth and peace to this day. As in Jackie Polzin's recent novel Brood, to which this book is similar in spirit, the natural world plays an important role, but here, instead of chickens, there is a praying mantis named Claude and several cats, both domestic and feral. A healing balm, this inviting memoir lights a path through grief and illness.
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