Reviews

A Very Angry Baby: The Anthology by Nicola Mason

laurelinwonder's review

4.0

There is no birth story that isn’t riveting and instructive, even in spite of the current political climate. There is a profound otherworldliness about birth, which is, in its rites, rituals, and transformations (not to mention the abuses that all too often turn it from a simple passage into a hellish ordeal) more like death than we usually care to admit. Many of these pieces follow a rough structure: pregnancy is strange and/or cool and/or lovely and/or a bummer; “due” dates come and go; protocol is followed, procedures are initiated, doctors or midwives induce manually or with synthetic drugs; labor starts out fine, gets intense; an epidural is eagerly/regretfully requested, labor stalls and/or goes on longer than regulation allows, doctors and nurses threaten, and/or condescend, and/or terrorize; one way or another all hell breaks loose. Stories are powerful and can change the way we think, and this lovely little anthology will make you think, deeply.