A Life's Work by Rachel Cusk is a parenting memoir that speaks the truth. In that sense, it's a rarity. My edition came out seven years after the original, and it contains maybe the best addendum I've ever read, where Cusk addresses "readers who find honesty akin to blasphemy when the religion is that of motherhood." She has to clarify that she does not, in fact, hate her own children. And with that out of the way, we plunge into a wide-eyed and often hilarious account. The physical changes of pregnancy, the lack of sleep, the bizarre social expectations, and the inability to connect with her baby daughter all are given a thorough examination. I can see why at the time the text was controversial, in that it totally lacks sentimentality, but having read later Cusk, I was not surprised. Her voice, if anything, was funnier in A Life's Work than it was in the Outline trilogy or her essay collection, and I loved it.
One interesting theme throughout the memoir was the dual impact of reading. On one hand, classical literature gave Cusk a foundation to understand her experience. She begins chapters with passages from writers like Edith Wharton or Charlotte Bronte, and these segue easily to her own revelations. On the other hand, current parenting books leave her bewildered. "Like a bad parent," she observes "the literature of pregnancy bristles with threats and the promise of reprisal, with ghoulish hints at the consequences of thoughtless actions. Eat pâté and your baby will get liver damage. Eat blue cheese and your baby will get listeria . . . Stroke the cat and your baby will get toxoplasmosis . . ." It was both funny and alarming how off-base Cusk found most professional advice. This juxtaposition between the usefulness of literary fiction and the stress of unhelpful nonfiction made as good a case for the study of English literature as I've seen.
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