Guest review by Janelle Bailey, avid reader and always learning; sometimes substitute teaching, sometimes grandbabysitting, sometimes selling books

Reproduction by Louisa Hall

Reproduction by Louisa Hall

Again, I seriously struggle to understand how books come to me exactly as and when they do such that they intertwine with and connect so completely in coincidental ways with my own life. It is not always as crazy as it is with this one, but this is a rare gem.

I can tell you that it was Wednesday, September 27, when I was working at my still newish job at an independent bookstore, when I visited at length with a customer, the two of us conversing at length over snippets of conversation interspersed among her browsing the books and my tending to other customers. It all began with my welcoming her and her sweet little dog (I still know his name), and us then sharing sort of leveled-up knowledge and understanding of books and authors and more. The end result–I have no recollection of what she may have purchased–was my having this title and another written on a scrap of paper, as they were the two books she’d most recently read.

I proceeded to put both titles on hold at my local library, and when this one became available, I added it to my to-read stack and near the top–well, left of my shelved short stack–and kept thinking that it was “truly next,” as I was eager to return to my conversation with this now friend and report, at her request, my thoughts about it. But for a bit, more pressing–book club, due sooner, etc.–titles took precedence.

At face value of the book’s title alone, this topic is one with which I am quite familiar, having successfully reproduced and nearly completely non-eventfully, five times. I often think–and usually with much marvel as well–about how gratefully awed I am by my body’s having handled this all so very well. Given that all five of mine are now adults and wishing to live very independently (more independent from me than pleases me, quite often), I find myself in a position to be trying on this new mature identity that doesn’t have me leading with that fact or role, when meeting new people these days. It’s a process, though, and for sure! Being a “mom” is truly all I ever wanted to do with my life, and then it became all that really mattered to me for the past thirty years since I first got to call myself one. But as I said, those girls…err, young women…are often determined to distance themselves from me, so I find myself trying to figure out who I am…newly and now.

All of that reproduction set me up–every single one of those five successful pregnancies led to the (re)production of another female–not only for exponential, as I’ve always hoped–numbers of grandchildren, but now includes continual and even more complex concerns about their own reproduction–including their rights, health, and so much, much more.

That Reproduction‘s cover flap reveals it to be a “genre-defying novel” had me fully engaged, as soon as I began reading it.

My first fondness came at mention of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, a long-taught, long-favorite classic, and a book I discussed just days before with a student while substitute teaching. That the main character–or Hall, it isn’t completely clear–was planning to write a book about Mary Shelley was fascinating to me and that thread of connectivity throughout the book valuable.

The next connection was reference to author Tove Jansson and then very shortly later to Jansson’s Moomins. My heart was fully engaged for my fondness of and connection to Jansson; at this very moment in time a former student’s full collection of Jansson books is housed in my bedroom. I’ve had the box for more than two years, possibly…my slow reading of those slowly interspersed with other books. And my learning of Jansson’s Moomins traced to a very specific conversation in a Stockholm kitchen belonging to my cousins, the Finnish wife, C, of my cousin, H, telling me about them while simultaneously packing our picnic lunch and teaching me about haloumi…if I recall accurately.

Additionally and next, that someone very close to my heart had endured a “molar pregnancy,” as experienced by the book’s main character was consoling, in some ways.

But that wasn’t all of it. The next length of the novel addresses the main character’s horrible hemorrhaging after delivery of her daughter and all that traumatized her in those scary hours. And that was so specifically similar to what I experienced less than a week before my starting to read this book with my own daughter’s second delivery. How does all of this happen in and with one book that I am so divinely steered to read?

This would suffice for all of the relevant reasons I was enthralled, all the while, with this book, but for the crazy fun of my reading life, there is yet one more marvelously amazing layer to my own story with reading this book: and that is that, on my Facebook post of my “Here’s what I am reading right now” post last Friday morning, a dear treasure of a long-time AP Lit. teaching-met and AP Lit. Reading-established friend, who lives in Florida, commented that she used to babysit Louisa Hall, herself. Oh. My. Word.

I will simply keep listening generously to those steering me toward the books, taking direction as I always have from the usual places–awards, short lists, gut feelings about new publications, trusted authors, etc.–and additionally be forever grateful that my opportunity to work in the bookstore has become rewarding far, far beyond being paid to talk about books and/or sell them to others. Rather, it has also introduced me to smart, avid, and discerning readers, galore…and I’ve made many, many new friends of this very best kind: fellow readers.

Oh! Were you expecting to read about the book?

It’s likely to fall somewhere between triggering and satisfying in that “feeling seen” sort of way for a number of women who have endured similar difficulties with miscarriage and other pregnancy and/or delivery, post-partum concerns. And it does provide a certain amount of relief and satisfaction, too, for those of us who have had successful pregnancies and deliveries.

It does not read like fiction, given the similarities between the voice of the main character and Louisa Hall, herself. I wonder if it could be called “auto-fiction,” allowing for Hall to blend her truths in with other potentially fictional angles for these stories to take. There is lots to be learned and understood in reading this good book.

Come back next Monday for another book review!