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Start giftingPanic and Joy
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Learn moreAn explosive and hilarious memoir about the exceptional and life-changing decision to conceive a child on one's own via assisted reproduction
When British journalist, memoirist, and New York-transplant Emma Brockes decides to become pregnant, she quickly realizes that, being single, thirty-seven, and in the early stages of a same-sex relationship, she's going to have to be untraditional about it. From the moment she decides to stop "futzing" around, have her eggs counted, and "get cracking"; through multiple rounds of IUI; to the births of her twins, which her girlfriend gamely documents with her iPhone and selfie stick, Brockes brings the reader every step of the way--all the while exploring the cultural circumstances and choices that have brought her to this point. With mordant wit and remarkable candor, Brockes shares the frustrations, embarrassments, surprises, and, finally, joys of her momentous and excellent choice.
Emma Brockes is the author of She Left Me the Gun: My Mother's Life Before Me. She writes for The Guardian's Weekend magazine and has contributed to The New York Times, The New Yorker, The Economist and Vogue. She is the winner of two British Press Awards—Young Journalist of the Year and Feature Writer of the Year—and while at Oxford won the Philip Geddes Memorial Prize for Journalism. She lives in New York.
Emma Brockes is the author of She Left Me the Gun: My Mother's Life Before Me. She writes for The Guardian's Weekend magazine and has contributed to The New York Times, The New Yorker, The Economist and Vogue. She is the winner of two British Press Awards—Young Journalist of the Year and Feature Writer of the Year—and while at Oxford won the Philip Geddes Memorial Prize for Journalism. She lives in New York.
Reviews
“[A] splendid and fascinating book. [Brockes’s] memoir is subtitled ‘Panic and Joy on My Solo Path to Motherhood,’ but I saw no time when Brockes — supremely confident, sensible and twice as smart as anyone else in the room — panicked. She is cool, methodical and, at times, insanely funny, with a great eye for the ironies and amusements of life…There is no doubt that her decision — at least for us readers — was an excellent one indeed.” —Minneapolis Star Tribune“The book speaks to a growing contingent of would-be parents who reach their 30s and 40s and find they have the means and motivation to have kids outside of a conventional domestic partnership, embracing their chosen single parenthood as a form of empowerment. It seems as if almost everyone bearing a child is writing a book about it, but Brockes is too original a personality to fall in quietly with the rest. A disarming and casually hilarious take on the opposite of co-parenting.” —Kirkus
“Brockes’ second memoir will have readers caught up in the excitement and anxiety of pregnancy along with her. Her humor and empathy shine through, even during her most challenging moments. Whether parents, aspiring parents, or happily child-free, readers will enjoy Brockes’ intimate story of how she became a mother.” —Booklist
“[A] thoughtful memoir…Brockes takes readers on a fascinating and sometimes frustrating journey through fertility treatments, dashed hopes and delays, often accenting her tale with clever comparisons of the American and the British health care systems…An uplifting, well-told story, in which Brockes walks the fine line between surrendering to chance (i.e., not one but two babies) and taking charge to make tough but excellent choices.” —Publishers Weekly
“I don't know whether to love Emma Brockes more as a writer or a human being. Why can't we all face life with her courage, grace, and shockingly good sense of humor?”
—Lauren Collins, author of When in French
“Emma Brockes is a spiky, smart and ferocious writer. Her quest to become a mother is alternately harrowing and hilarious.”
—Pamela Druckerman, author of Bringing Up Bébé and There Are No Grown-ups
“Witty, irreverent, and wickedly perceptive, An Excellent Choice illuminates not one, but a whole host of still quasi-taboo topics from sperm donors to assisted reproduction. Emma Brockes is a beautiful writer, a wonderful story-teller, and a keen observer of human nature.”
—Amy Chua, author of Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother and Political Tribes Expand reviews