Paula BomerRecensioni

All the dark nasty bits of relationships are hiding in this book of short stories. It's like peeking in to the medicine cabinets and bedside tables of strangers. Creepy, wrong-feeling, but impossible to resist.

Great read

Ugh. Socialist drivel. Dumped it at Loc 238 as I couldn't stomach it anymore.

The stories and the novella in "inside Madeline" may or may not change your life, but after reading it, I'm pretty convinced that it's author does two things magnificently well: she presents an intimate, detailed topography of the seedier side of high school social hierarchies and presents an overwhelmingly forceful portrait of female sexual desire. Not every reader will particularly enjoy the content of these stories or the ruthlessly straightforward, unromantic they're set down, but Bomer certainly knows her territory. These stories hit fast and hard, and, to stick with our chosen metaphor, pull absolutely no punches. Her depictions of female friendships, particularly those that subtle class and subcultural lines, are exquisitely nuanced, and she seems to have a special talent for describing that moment that youthful exuberance meets cold, hard, wrenchingly painful disappointment. "Reading to the Blind Girl" in particular seems designed to ruin an optimistic college sophomore's day, a deftly unresolvable portrait of young-adult cruelty and loss. Bomer also seems fond of setting her stories in the eighties and early nineties, a period in which populist rock excess gave way to underground scenester cachet and lots of rock kids seemed painfully aware of the amount of cultural capital they possessed. If you had a subscription to SPIN or watched "120 Minutes" every week on MTV, this one might bring back memories.

And then there's the sex. Depictions of sex by female writers often tend to pass over the animal act to focus on the telling detail, the fleeting emotion, or the soft glow of orgasm. Bomer, by contrast, sees sex as relentlessly, bluntly physical, as consuming need and moist mechanical grind. This may disgust or alarm some readers -- and to be fair, a lot of alarming things happen in these stories -- but those who like their sexual encounters, real or fictional, to be quick, dirty, and pointedly unromantic will find a lot to like here. And fans of Mary Gaitskill should stop doing whatever they're doing and buy "Inside Madeline" immediately. But there's also much more here than just prurience and bodily fluids. The novella that gives this collection its name is a surprisingly sensitive portrait of its titular character that uses negative literary space to excellent effect. It's a sympathetic piece that uses excess to trace the shape of its protagonist's empty places. Bomer writes like so much of us is composed of our joyful, desperate, needy bodies, but she doesn't forget that that's not all we are. She also wants to show us that that's not all there is inside of Maddy.½

The basics: Nine Months is the story of Brooklyn wife and mom of two Sonia, who finds herself unintentionally and unhappily pregnant with number three. With frustration mounting, Sonia takes off on a cross-country trip alone--and does so many things pregnant women aren't supposed to do.

My thoughts: I've been saving Nine Months to read until I was very, very pregnant. I'm so glad I did because it was fun to live vicariously through Sonia. I'm happily pregnant, of course, but I also really dislike being pregnant. The thought of being pregnant again--ever--terrifies me. I can relate to Sonia's feeling of helplessness, but as real as it is, this novel is also escapist fun. It's fantasy that's firmly planted in reality:
""You’re pregnant. You’re doing a great job. I know it’s hard.” “You don’t know how hard it is. And I’m not doing a ‘great job.’ I haven’t done anything, except fuck you. This is happening to me, don’t you understand? I have nothing to do with it. It’s taking over me. It’s taking over my body and my soul, for God’s sake, like some parasite, like some alien virus.” Tears come to her eyes."
Through her marriage and her children, Sonia has lost something of herself. She's been looking forward to having her youngest in school so she can (finally) return to her art. Another child would hinder those plans; it would also mean their already cramped Brooklyn two-bedroom apartment would become impossible to live in.

There's a rawness and an honesty to both Sonia and Bomer's writing that I loved: "Not for the first time, she hates the fact that she is raising her kids in New York, where people treat their children like a combination between a science and an art project." This novel is wickedly funny in a way that isn't necessarily socially acceptable. It's dark and comical, but it's also firmly grounded in reality:
"The baby’s mouth roots around like a baby bird, unable to grasp on. So Sonia squeezes her nipple and colostrum comes out and the infant’s lips touch the pre-milk milk and then, it works—the baby tries to suck. First slowly, and then, as if something in her wired-for-survival brain clicks, she ferociously latches on to Sonia’s nipple and sucks on her like that’s what she’s been put on this earth to do. Which is, in fact, true. Her daughter is here to suck the life out of her, and leave her for the spent, middle-aged woman she soon will be."
The situations Sonia encounters are real, and perhaps her actions are too. For me? I wouldn't have the guts to act as recklessly as she does.

Favorite passage: "And as much as she feared being a minority in Kensington, she fears even more being literally stranded among people who are supposedly just like her. She’s never felt that anyone was just like her, regardless of skin color or money—it’s just not a dream she could ever buy into. It doesn’t ring any bell for her."

The verdict: I adored Nine Months as much for Sonia's illicit adventures as I did for Bomer's writing. It's a brave novel, and the combination of literary escape and social commentary is a winning one.½

I would be very curious to talk to another person who read this book. More specifically, a person who read this book and either like it or could identify for more than a few seconds with the main character, Sonia. Because despite the fact that she and I have several similarities in our lives – I just could not stand her.

Which I suspected would be the case going into “Nine Months” given the blurb I’d read. I didn’t expect that a story about a woman who abandoned her husband and two children while pregnant with her third would be either touching or heartwarming. But I thought I would come to understand why Sonia made that decision – at least from her point of view.

But the closest I came was summed up with this. “All her life, all of her thirty-five years, she’s only wanted to experience everything…”

Sonia is selfish, hedonistic, incredibly crude, critical of everyone except herself, verbally abusive and just not very interesting. Although I am sure she finds herself fascinating.

With such a main character, a book could still be interesting if the characters surrounding her were well drawn, layered…even just realistic. But the stereotypes here are just eye rolling. Upper-middle class entitled New York wives? Check. “Clarissa and Riva believed in their inheritances. They believed in staying home and shopping. They believed that they were their husbands’ wives and their children’s mother. And those who didn’t believe didn’t have the same God. Those who didn’t believe weren’t saved.”

The over nurturing to the point of creepiness Earth mother? Check. Gun loving and toting xenophobic mother? Check. Overworked husband who doesn’t understand his wife’s needs? Check.

This is a story about a woman who wants for almost nothing…and mostly wants what she can’t have. She wants to make no choices and every choice. She wants it all and none of it. Nothing seems to make her happy. Which makes for a very unhappy reader.

This novel presents itself as a 'middle finger salute' to the current culture of mommy blogs and political correctness, to the idea of the glowing pregnant woman and the blissful harmony of pregnancy, family life and womanhood. Bomer sets out to share the story of a woman, a mother and wife, who is not so excited to be pregnant again - her experience of pregnancy, not only the physical aspects but also the mental and emotional sides, is fairly miserable. She hates her body, she comes to hate her husband and her friends, and she resents her children even as she loves them.

I think Bomer's idea is a good one. Women do feel an immense pressure to put on a happy face in pregnancy and in motherhood, to be perfect in their womanhood. It's not supposed to be hard, a woman is supposed to flourish in these roles. And Sonia is failing miserably. She's afraid that she's a bad mother and a bad wife, yet all she wants is to escape her life and return to the freedom of her youth. So she does just that, setting out on an unsanctioned road trip for the last three months of her third pregnancy, leaving her husband and children behind in order to reconnect with herself.

I wanted to like this book. I wanted to sympathize with Sonia, with her husband Dick, with the kids. But I couldn't, the characters were detestable and frankly I think deserved each other's mistreatment. Bomer did a fabulous job making Sonia come alive - she is as real a character as I have read in quite some time. Her physical discomfort is alive on the page, as is her terror at the pending birth and her desperate fear that she has lost herself somewhere in the mix and might never recover. Bomer's writing is strong, though at times the thread of the story was lost a bit in the disjointed and rambling nature of the characters' interactions.

Bomer took quite a chance with this novel, tackling the rather taboo topic of an unhappy mother and the choices she must face in attempting to balance her life, her art and her family. The idea was strong, as was most of the writing, but the characters were so unlikable and the dialogue at times so far-fetched that I can't give the book more than three stars - it was readable, but frustrating.

Nine Months is an audacious novel that explores the difficult journey of a woman who is struggling to balance her need for individuality with motherhood. Sonia was relieved to find that mothering was becoming a little easier as her two young sons began to gain independence. However her dreams of reclaiming the ambitions she held before their birth is shattered when she discovers she is pregnant again. Ruling out an abortion, Sonia attempts to reconcile the impending birth with her feelings of loss and frustration but as her due date draws closer, the temptation to escape the pressure proves too strong. Abandoning her husband and children, Sonia withdraws the family's savings and sets off on a wild cross country road trip in search of the woman she once was.

Self absorbed, petty and vulgar it's easy to judge Sonia for her impetuous actions. However, I think there are very few mothers, who in those first hellish months of motherhood, have not fleetingly thought about escaping their infants incessant demands or at least briefly mourned the carefree, autonomous life they led before parenthood. Bomer magnifies those doubts and longings, giving her character permission to both feel and act on them without censoring herself. Sonia's wild escape is response to depression, desperation and frustration, though of course she can't leave behind the child in her womb. Instead she does her best to pretend it is either not there or somehow separate from her.
It's worth noting that Sonia's debauchery only consists of a handful of incidents. She indulges in only one anonymous sex encounter and just two hits off a joint, though she drinks (mainly beer) fairly freely. However these single acts are enough to likely condemn her in popular opinion, even by those who may have sympathised with her need to escape. Neither is Sonia all 'bad', there are moments of ambivalence and reflection that stir empathy and allow the reader to glimpse her less hormone crazed identity.
While it seems likely to me that Sonia is suffering from severe pre partum depression (which affects 10-15% of women), particularly since its is noted that in her previous pregnancies she experienced strong mood swings and high anxiety, there are no clear signs that Bomer wrote Sonia with that affliction at her core. Perhaps it is simply wishful thinking on my part, since I do find Sonia's behaviour repugnant in the main, though I am not without empathy for her.

The first person point of view of Nine Months is immediate and raw. Descriptions are often crude and those offended by explicit content and language will want to steer clear of this novel. The pace is surprisingly brisk, I didn't want to put it down, engrossed by Sonia's emotional journey.

Confronting, seditious and original Nine Months is a compelling novel. I expect opinions of the novel will be divisive among its readership. Personally, I think Bomer is brave in exposing a rarely acknowledged aspect of pregnancy and motherhood.

Author: Paula Bomer
Published By: Soho Press
Age Recommended: Adult
Rating: 4
Blog For: GMTA

Review:

"Nine Months: A Novel by Paula Bomer was definitely a different kind of book to read. Sonia is unexpectedly pregnant with her third child and being somewhat confused, caught up with dissatisfaction and anger goes a a crazy road trip that retraced her life. The trip took Sonia through casual sex, drinking and even smoking weed with people and places from her past....strangers, friends and even family.

This novel was a look at motherhood from a dysfunctional way in that it was vulgar, crude and but yet honest from its point of view.I know a lot of us will not like this novel but that was how this author presented it. Will this person be able in the end be able to balance her personal satisfaction while being also a mother and a wife? Will she find the resolution or answers to all of this? Now, this is the point that I will say you must pick up "Nine Months: A Novel" to see how this will all turn out.

If you are easily offended by a crazy fictional portrayal of a pregnant woman doing every that she should not do...do not read this...you will not like it but if you would like to see how this author wrote this well written "Nine Months: A Novel" then I would recommend you pick this one up for a good read. You may even find yourself smiling at some of its creativity.

I am a bit ambivalent about this book, because even though I think the writing is good, and the stories are easy to read and full of human emotion, the book is a real downer. These are stories about husbands hating their wives, mothers full of resentment towards their children, families devoid of happiness and affection. The one that got to me the most was the story of the husband feeling disgusted and apathetic towards his wife's lung infection, to the point where he ignores her waking up in the middle of the night coughing up streams of blood, to find her dead in the morning, but instead of feeling any kind of guilt he is relieved by her death. Even though the mitigating factor in these stories is that they are a work of fiction, it is still enough to confirm my phobia of the married life. I'm guessing that this would be a good comforting read for a cold cloudy day while one's unemployed husband is drinking away the month's welfare check.