Motherlunge (New Issues Poetry & Prose) - Contemporary Poetry Collection for Book Lovers & Literary Enthusiasts | Perfect for Reading, Gifting & Book Club Discussions

Thea has always lived in the shadow of her beautiful, older sister, Pavia. While Pavia is married with a good job in a big city, Thea works as a waitress and lives at home with her troubled mother in a small western town. But when Pavia calls, distressed ("Jack is maybe going. Everything is wrong."), Thea flies to help. Pavia is pregnant, emotionally adrift--echoing their mother's severe postpartum depressions and Thea's own secret desire to become pregnant. As time passes, Thea stays on with her newly separated sister, finding her bearings in the city but also learning that Pavia is not the only one for whom everything is wrong. Despite its narrator's deep insecurity, Motherlunge is an astonishingly assured first novel. Scott examines family and relationships with a clinical eye, a tender touch, and a warm sense of humor. And while her prose is simply stunning, rich with vivid similes and metaphors, it is the wry, slowly revealed wisdom of the heart that is her greatest accomplishment. Interleaved with the story are short passages, advice to an unborn child, that mesh wonderfully with the knowledge Thea haltingly acquires. I read this book twice--and I cried and laughed both times.