In this moving, uniquely honest, and transformative collection of original essays, twenty-five celebrated writers share one of their most intimate and life-changing experiences: childbirth.
Featuring an introduction by bestselling author and columnist Leah McLaren, Great Expectations takes the reader on an emotional and physical journey like no other: Lynn Coady relates the painful memory of her teenage pregnancy and the anguish of having to give up her newborn for adoption; Peter Behrens expresses a father’s feeling of utter helplessness and incomparable joy during the birth of his first child; Christy Ann Conlin describes pregnancy and birth at age forty; Afua Cooper reflects upon the immigrant’s experience of three pregnancies and childbirths in a new land with foreign, and evolving, customs; Anne Fleming contemplates her partner’s artificial insemination and the birth of a beautiful girl; and Jaclyn Moriarty transcribes her grandmother’s and her mother’s birth stories, along with her own, to create a tender oral history spanning three generations.
In this moving, uniquely honest, and transformative collection of original essays, twenty-five celebrated writers share one of their most intimate and life-changing experiences: childbirth.
Featuring an introduction by bestselling author and columnist Leah McLaren, Great Expectations takes the reader on an emotional and physical journey like no other: Lynn Coady relates the painful memory of her teenage pregnancy and the anguish of having to give up her newborn for adoption; Peter Behrens expresses a father’s feeling of utter helplessness and incomparable joy during the birth of his first child; Christy Ann Conlin describes pregnancy and birth at age forty; Afua Cooper reflects upon the immigrant’s experience of three pregnancies and childbirths in a new land with foreign, and evolving, customs; Anne Fleming contemplates her partner’s artificial insemination and the birth of a beautiful girl; and Jaclyn Moriarty transcribes her grandmother’s and her mother’s birth stories, along with her own, to create a tender oral history spanning three generations.
| Published By | House of Anansi Press Inc — Mar 6, 2018 |
| Specifications | 320 pages | 5.25 in x 8 in |
| Keywords | parenting; motherhood; fatherhood; adoption; birth; conception; miscarriage; caesarian section; c section; trauma; joy; international women's day; lynn coady; peter behrens; artificial insemination; canlit; memoir; introduction; the m word kerry clare; good mother myth; a life's work rachel cusk; collectors edition; gifts for mom; mothers day; |
|
Supporting Resources
(select item to download) |
Excerpt |
| Edited by |
LISA MOORE is the acclaimed author of the novels Caught, February, and Alligator; the story collections Open and Something for Everyone; and the young-adult novel Flannery. Her books have won the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize and CBC’s Canada Reads, been finalists for the Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize and the Scotiabank Giller Prize, and been longlisted for the Man Booker Prize. Moore is also the co-librettist, along with Laura Kaminsky, of the opera February, based on her novel of the same name. She lives in St. John’s, Newfoundland. |
| Edited by | Dede Crane is the critically acclaimed author of the novel Sympathy and the collection The Cult of Quick Repair. She lives in Victoria, British Columbia, with her husband, author Bill Gaston, and their four children. |
| Edited by |
|
LISA MOORE is the acclaimed author of the novels Caught, February, and Alligator; the story collections Open and Something for Everyone; and the young-adult novel Flannery. Her books have won the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize and CBC’s Canada Reads, been finalists for the Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize and the Scotiabank Giller Prize, and been longlisted for the Man Booker Prize. Moore is also the co-librettist, along with Laura Kaminsky, of the opera February, based on her novel of the same name. She lives in St. John’s, Newfoundland. |
| Edited by |
| Dede Crane is the critically acclaimed author of the novel Sympathy and the collection The Cult of Quick Repair. She lives in Victoria, British Columbia, with her husband, author Bill Gaston, and their four children. |
“Profoundly moving.” —Globe and Mail
“This collection of essays about childbirth is dedicated to parents of the past, present, and future. No matter which you are, you'll find something to enjoy in these often humorous and dramatic personal stories. The contributors are a who's who of CanLit.” —Best Health
“Some of Canada's best writers . . . delve into their experiences of childbirth and bare their souls in sharing their memories . . . [Great Expectations] demands the best that each writer has to give. These writers deliver.” —Atlantic Books Today
“As suits such a multi-faceted subject, this collection is varied in tone, narrative, and authorship...All the writers are award winning authors so the prose is always very good, deftly observant, forming sharp, poignant, comic, succinct dramas . . . Each story can stand alone as an engrossing read. Together they create a lovely sense of continuum.” —Newfoundland Quarterly