Little Labours

RIVKA GALCHEN is the author of Atmospheric Disturbances and American Innovations. In 2010 she was named by The New Yorker as one of the top twenty American authors under the age of forty. She lives in New York.

‘Little Labours triumphantly breaks the silent embargo, demonstrating how these little ‘bundles of joy’ can transcend cloying cliché to spark fantastic flights of the imagination and critical introspection’ Financial Times‘Odd, witty, nimble … A stimulating read, a curio, for any woman, mother or not, interested in a unique slant on new parenthood’ Observer‘She writes about her new baby as a puma; a plucked chicken; a force of nature that blows her apart and then puts her back together, different. A micro-masterpiece written in short, sharp, hallucinatory fragments’ Irish Times‘The fragmentary nature of Little Labours perfectly evokes the state of new motherhood, in which moments of reflection are fleeting; bright flashes that are chased away almost as soon as they arrive. The parts themselves glisten and lodge in the memory. They are “small as opposed to minor”’ Guardian‘Galchen does something more profound than tackle motherhood; she utterly reinvents and reanimates the subject’ Interview Magazine‘A book of extraordinary savour, with nearly every sentence calling for an emphatic underline … The sense upon finishing this tiny tome is that it is indeed very small, but not in the least bit minor’ The National Post‘Galchen is, for my money, one of the most gifted stylists writing in American English today. Her funniness is otherworldly. Preternaturally deft, Galchen can do almost anything with next to nothing.’ Los Angeles Review of Books‘A highly original book of essays and observations … I adore Galchen’s quiet, and the bravery of this book’s fragments … Motherhood is an undiscovered country in the literary sense, one we must venture into lest our experience goes unrecorded, or recorded only by men … I am confident that many mothers (and other sleepless readers) will pick up this book and feel that they have found an unexpectedly intimate friend’ The New York Times Book Review‘A funny, profound memoir’ Emma Healey, Observer, Books of the Year