Two very different books, but they’re both amazing.
Into the Savage Country by Shannon Burke - Burke bothers little with initially fleshing out his main character, William Wyeth, but that’s because he doesn’t need to. The story, set in the West in the 1820s amidst the risky world of fur trapping, is enthralling and suspenseful from the start. I know little about fur trapping and even less about the political upheaval surrounding it at the time, but that didn’t stop me from enjoying every page. Burke paints an extraordinarily vivid picture of the American West—I could see the hills, trees, snow. There’s a horse race partway through the book that was a fantastic bit of writing. As Wyeth’s character develops more, I became deeply attached to him. The story has fun moments (some romance) and lots of action, though it takes a bit for the plot to really get moving. Still, it’s a great adventure story and I loved it.
After Birth by Elisa Albert - Holy shit, this book. It hit me hard and I finished it in the space of an hour or two because I couldn’t bear to put it down. To summarize: After Birth is about a woman’s friendships, family, and life generally in the aftermath of having her first child. It is unbearably raw and real. It’s the finest writing I’ve found about how becoming a mother inexorably changes a woman’s relationship to herself and to others. The often conflicting and sometimes disturbing emotions a mother can have in the vulnerable months or years after giving birth are unflinchingly on display in this book. Albert’s writing is honest, with truths that felt like someone had peeled back my scalp and shone a flashlight into dark recesses of my brain that I’d either long tucked away or forgotten existed. Because this book moved me so intensely, here are a few passages I noted to share with you:
The baby starts up with the whimpers. I take my cue. Keep the stroller moving, always moving, my reflexive animal sway. Respite over. Maneuver down the block toward the river, up Chestnut, and on home. Put some cheese on crackers and call it dinner. Another day gone, okay, and I get it, I got it: I’m over. I no longer exist. This is why there’s that ancient stipulation about the childless being ineligible for the study for religious mysticism. This is why there’s all that talk about kid having as express train to enlightenment. You can meditate, you can medicate, you can take peyote in the desert at sunrise, you can self-immolate, or you can have a baby, and disappear.
I’m not saying it happens every minute of every day, and I’m not saying it renders the other stuff unimportant, but there are moments of the most crazy all-encompassing joy. What a phenomenally beautiful kid. A funny, dear child. […] If the world interferes with him, with what is loving and open and funny in him, I will rear up in full roar. I will break the world’s neck with a swipe of my mighty paw, no warning. Anything fucks with this kid, I will fucking kill it. It’s the wildest thing: I really and truly love him more every day. I had no idea. You supposedly fall in love with them the moment they exit your body, but in the aftermath I was just like WHAT THE FUCK WAS THAT. And I have to believe he was just as much ‘what the fuck’ as was I. And there we both were. The relationship develops, the getting to know each other. I mean, he’s completely and totally dependent, which is very intense, but it’s not love. Over time I have to let go of him. That’s love. That’s the work.