This book could be described as memoir, essay, or non-fiction-but more important than the genres it defies, it is the story of a new mother and baby, told in non-chronological vignettes or fragments over the span of eighteen months: from conception, through to birth, to when the baby is nine months old, titled with the months before or after birth. Kinsella’s writing deftly draws the reader into the murky waters of time in new motherhood. However, Kinsella carves out her own space within this recent niche, writing frankly and thoughtfully about what it is to be a new mother in Ireland right now: post mother and baby homes, post the eighth amendment, and concerned with how the pressures of social media and the anxiety about climate change impact new parents. Milk will soon take up its rightful place alongside other recent personal non-fiction from Irish women such as Emilie Pine and Doireann Ní Ghríofa. Milk: On Motherhood and Madness|Alice Kinsella|Picador|€13.99 Milk-time and structure are let loose in a genre defying book destined to become a cult classicįrom its opening pages, Milk: On Motherhood and Madness, already feels like the kind of cult classic that will in time be passed from friend to friend, pressed into hands earnestly, taking hold of readers’ hearts.
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