Motherhood: A Novel [Paperback]

Shortlisted for the Giller Prize
Named a Best Book of the Year byThe New York Times, New York Magazine,Vulture(#1 of 2018),NPR,Financial Times,The Times Literary Supplement,Chicago Tribune,Bustle,Lit Hub,Refinery29,Bookforum,andTop Shelf

Sheila Hetis book seems likely to become the defining literary work on the subject . . . Its hard to do justice to its complexity. This is less a book than a tapestrya finely wrought work of delicate art.
The Guardian

From the author ofHow Should a Person Be?comes a daring novel about whether or not to have children.

InMotherhood,Sheila Heti asks what is gained and what is lost when a woman becomes a mother, treating the most consequential decision of early adulthood with the candor, originality, and humor that have won Heti international acclaim and madeHow Should A Person Be?required reading for a generation.

In her late thirties, when her friends are askingwhenthey will become mothers, the narrator of Hetis intimate and urgent novel considers whether she will do so at all. In a narrative spanning several years, casting among the influence of her peers, partner, and her duties to her forbearers, she struggles to make a wise and moral choice. After seeking guidance from philosophy, her body, mysticism, and chance, she discovers her answer much closer to home.

Motherhoodis a courageous, keenly felt, and starkly original novel that will surely spark lively conversations about womanhood, parenthood, and about howand for whomto live.