Reviewed by Eleanor J. Bader

In Four Mothers: An Intimate Journey Through the First Year of Parenthood in Four Countries, Journalist Abigail Leonard, a mother of three, blends the personal and political in her astute look at how motherhood is supported (or not) in four countries: Finland, Kenya, Japan, and the United States. Her up-close-and-personal portrayals of four cisgender women track the physical toll of childbirth, post-delivery adjustment, and relationship strain. The result is powerful. “Many of the big decisions, like how much time to spend with the children and how to divide the emotional and physical labor with their partner, are heavily determined by the social structure of the place women give birth,” she writes.

Finland comes closest to an ideal, not only providing cost-free prenatal care that includes therapy to break intergenerational trauma in expectant moms but also utilizing midwives for most deliveries. During the birth itself, medication is promoted to reduce labor pain. Then, after the no-cost-to-them birth, moms like Anna get nearly a year of paid leave from their jobs; paid paternity leave is also encouraged. This has made Finland the only country in the industrialized world where fathers spend more time with school-aged children than mothers. Still, it’s not utopia, and Leonard chronicles the custody drama between Anna and Masa, her newborn’s dad.

That said, Anna has access to robust social supports, including professional daycare, which makes navigating single parenthood possible, if difficult. Nonetheless, compared to Chelsea in Kenya, Sarah in the US, and Tsukasa in Japan – mothers who have to juggle post-partum anxiety and depression with a relatively quick return to work – Finland seems like the gold standard. For the other three, the stress of unaffordable childcare, lack of breastfeeding support, and frustration with partners who either vanish or are clueless, makes this immersive portrayal heartbreaking, albeit compelling.

Sadly, Leonard notes that the visionary feminist goal of egalitarian parenting, a once prominent demand, remains unrealized. But we know what’s needed. While Four Mothers does not make policy recommendations, its case studies serve as a potent directive.

Four Mothers: An Intimate Journey Through the First Year of Parenthood in Four Countries by Abigail Leonard. Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill, May 2025 [pre-order available].

Reviewer bio: Eleanor J. Bader is a Brooklyn, NY-based journalist who writes about books and domestic social issues for Truthout, Rain Taxi, The Progressive, Ms. Magazine, the Los Angeles Review of Books, and The Indypendent.

Review by Kevin Brown

Roisín O’Donnell’s debut novel tells the story of Ciara, a woman who seems to have the perfect life: an attractive husband who has a steady job, enabling her and their two children to live a comfortable life. However, the reader discovers quite quickly that Ryan is not what he seems, as he emotionally and sexually abuses her. Readers see little of that abuse firsthand, especially the assaults, but they clearly see the effect of that abuse on Ciara.

She is finally able to leave Ryan, but her life for much of the next year is precarious, as there is little housing in Dublin for her and her children. She ends up in a hotel, with little money, trying to find a better place to live and a job to support her children. While her family offers to help her, she—like many survivors of abuse—is reluctant to take it. However, the people she meets in the hotel (and one brave civil servant who meets her outside of the office to tell her the truth about the reality of finding housing) help keep her from completely falling through the gaping holes of the social safety nets.

Throughout the novel, Ciara questions if she is making the right decision by leaving, especially when she gives birth to their third child and returns with him to the hotel. Ryan’s years of abuse have made Ciara afraid of him and unsure of herself, so she has moments where she allows him back into their lives, partly because of the legal system, but partly because of what he has done to her psyche.

O’Donnell reveals the realities of abuse that is more emotional in nature and how it causes a person to change, as well as the problems with the systems that should help women in such situations. However, there are still moments of joy where Ciara remembers who she once was and who she still can be.

Nesting by Roisín O’Donnell. Algonquin Books, February 2025.

Reviewer bio: Kevin Brown has published three books of poetry: Liturgical Calendar: Poems (Wipf and Stock); A Lexicon of Lost Words (winner of the Violet Reed Haas Prize for Poetry, Snake Nation Press); and Exit Lines (Plain View Press). He also has a memoir, Another Way: Finding Faith, Then Finding It Again, and a book of scholarship, They Love to Tell the Stories: Five Contemporary Novelists Take on the Gospels. IG, Threads, and BlueSky: @kevinbrownwrites

Guest Post by Kevin Brown

Sunday Forrester, the narrator of Lloyd-Barlow’s Booker-longlisted novel All the Little Bird-Hearts, is different than her family and friends. She prefers to eat white food only; she isn’t concerned about how she dresses; and her internal monologue makes it clear that she struggles in social situations. Though she never explicitly says she’s autistic, Lloyd-Barlow’s biography explains that she has “extensive personal, professional, and academic experience relating to autism,” and the publisher’s page pronounces the book to be “a remarkable debut by an author who is herself autistic.”

Despite her struggles, though, Sunday is quite happy with her life, both with her work at her ex-husband’s family’s greenhouse and her life with her daughter from that marriage, Dolly. Her life, in fact, seems to get better when Vita and Rollo move into the house beside hers, renting it for at least the summer, perhaps longer. Vita, especially, brings excitement and color to Sunday’s life, as Vita seems the opposite of Sunday in every aspect, yet she seems enamored by her new neighbor.

Vita and Rollo begin taking Sunday, then Dolly, into their life on a more regular basis. However, Vita and Rollo bring a wider world into Dolly’s small-town life, often taking her to London and showing her what a life away from her mother could look like. They use Sunday’s differences to create conflict, heightened by the difference in wealth and class, leading to a difficult ending for all involved.

All the Little Bird-Hearts by Viktoria Lloyd-Barlow. Algonquin Books, December 2023.

Reviewer bio: Kevin Brown has published three books of poetry: Liturgical Calendar: Poems (Wipf and Stock); A Lexicon of Lost Words (winner of the Violet Reed Haas Prize for Poetry, Snake Nation Press); and Exit Lines (Plain View Press). He also has a memoir, Another Way: Finding Faith, Then Finding It Again, and a book of scholarship, They Love to Tell the Stories: Five Contemporary Novelists Take on the Gospels. Twitter @kevinbrownwrite