Proud Flesh: A Memoir of Motherhood, Intimate Violence, and Reclaiming Pleasure

by Catherine Simone Gray

What happens when survivors become mothers?

As seen in Roxane Gay’s The Audacity—a mother’s memoir of healing trauma, finding pleasure, and redefining the joys of her body

Proud Flesh is a gripping memoir—tender and fierce, incisive and whip-smart—that reckons with the questions what happens when survivors become mothers? and what if we give half the attention to understanding our pleasure as we have to our pain?

By the time Catherine Simone Gray was expecting her first child, she was ready to get a 4.0 in the best baby books, the months of parenting classes, the loving, supportive partner—mother cum laude. But when she found herself struggling—to birth, to bond, to simply be with her son—she came up against a long-buried the sexual violence and emotional abuse perpetrated against her in an earlier relationship created a wound that hadn’t really healed. It’s the kind of wound that society—and the cultural annals of mainstream motherhood—don’t prepare you the kind that makes itself known, on its own time, and demands to be seen before it can be tended.

Proud Flesh chronicles how birth and postpartum helped heal Gray from trauma, thrive in her marriage, and find surprise in the joy of her body. Told in two parallel narratives, Gray weaves her postpartum healing journey with the story of her young womanhood, sharing the arc of an abusive relationship and the healthy love she built in its aftermath.

A memoir of trauma, survivorship, brightness, and pleasure, Proud Flesh is a testament that we can pursue pleasure alongside our pain, build trust in our relationships, and learn to embrace our eroticism—and that motherhood can be an aid, rather than a hurdle, to this transformation.

Genres: Nonfiction, Memoir

264 pages, Paperback

Published February 25, 2025

Reviews

[Lauren Rhoades · Rating 5 out of 5]

A gorgeous, lush memoir of pain, pleasure and healing. This book has made me reflect on my own experience as a mother, and how my upbringing and experiences as a girl and young woman have impacted the way I perceive my body. This is Catherine’s gift as a writer—she welcomes curiosity and self-reflection. This book will undoubtedly change many women’s lives.

[Shauna · Rating 5 out of 5]

I accidentally picked this book up thinking it was by another Catherine Gray but it was exactly what I needed. Well written. I could feel her trauma as well as her path to recovery. As a survivor of abuse, it gave me hope!

[Mia Caven · Rating 5 out of 5]

this is an incredibly hard read if youve been through something similar. I dont know how else to describe this book in a way that feels positive, because it is positive, and a must-read for abuse survivors, but it felt like a pit in my stomach that just kept growing and growing with every page. im in intensive ptsd therapy, im the least avoidant person you'll meet, and yet I felt like I had to look away.

I feel injured and yet at the same time, post-orgasmic. someone understands me, and there's ecstasy in that. after finishing, I (TMI) genuinely grabbed my vibrator, sobbed, and then sang (screamed) for over an hour straight. I didnt know, dont know, how else to compute and digest an experience near identical and feel both terror and relief.

even though I am not a mother yet, nor was my ptsd heavily linked to my body, I felt like clutching all my organs to ensure they'd stay in place just reading this. I need to physically sleep after this book and yet, in that way, it was brilliant. I would not read this if you are easily triggered or 'grossed out'. I am neither and yet it still utterly sucker punched me.

[Megan Felker Mawhorter · Rating 5 out of 5]

The author has such a distinct voice, her words feel sensual and luscious. She compels the reader to slow down, observe, soak everything in. I felt like she wrote each word so carefully and lovingly that nothing was wasted…much like nature. Her words bring the reader into the space and you are a witness. Because of this, I found myself returning to her author’s note as a reminder to close the book when I needed to. Even her author’s note was beautifully written with care (unlike many author’s notes that only include trigger warnings and read like the side effects in a prescription drug ad). Hers read like poetry written from the perspective of a wise, knowing, and loving mother.

There were moments along the way when I howled with laughter, sighed or grunted with knowing, murmured a “yes” as though in conversation with the author over our shared experiences, and declared my favorite line only to discover another favorite two chapters later.

I also noticed how much I enjoyed the structure of this book. It is not linear, and neither is healing.

It is a beautiful work of art. I encourage everyone to listen to the audiobook as well - it is tenderly narrated by the author.

[Victoria Richard · Rating 5 out of 5]

The author has such a distinct gift. I read a lot of things dealing with trauma, but Catherine Gray's work has really had an impact on me. She describes her trauma deeply and thoroughly, but also sensitively - in a way that doesn't feel retraumatizing to read. The work she's done to heal is evident with the beauty she portrays coexisting alongside darker moments of her life.

The other thing: motherhood certainly is a major theme of the book, but you don't have to be a mother to enjoy it. I'm not a mother, but it is still eye-opening and enjoyable to read. I also feel just slightly more prepared for the ways my own trauma might impact my own family decisions.

Thanks Catherine!

[Shana · Rating 4 out of 5]

***Thanks to NetGalley for this ARC in exchange for my honest review***

There are memoirs around pregnancy/labor/birth/motherhood and there are memoirs about intimate violence/abuse and there are memoirs about finding/rediscovering/nurturing pleasure, but this one truly delves into it all. The title does not lie. Catherine Simone Gray searches through her past to better understand her present, and she does not hold back. The ways in which she drew connections between the biomedical and the somatic experience of it all drew me in.

[Catherine Liggett · Rating 5 out of 5]

As a mother and survivor, I feel like I’ve been waiting so many years for this book. As if through powerful healing magic, Gray’s breathtakingly gorgeous and courageous truth-telling leaves me feeling intimately seen and held in ways I didn’t even know I needed. Proud Flesh weaves such stunning sensuality into each page that my own traumatic experiences feel honored, elevated, and repaired simply through reading it. I seriously could not put this book down. This is one of those magical books that deeply and irrevocably changes you.

[Taylor · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have known and loved Catherine Gray’s writing since the days of her blog, Unsilenced Woman. I am so profoundly moved by this memoir of the complexities of womanhood. Her writing is beautifully poetic, yet wholly accessible. So resonant to my experience of motherhood and its requirement to hold multiple truths at once. I’m so grateful for her bravery to put pen to paper and process the experiences of her life. What a gift and honor to read. I have never devoured a book as quickly as I did Proud Flesh.

[Kelly Lundquist · Rating 5 out of 5]

So many women are taught to fear and hide their bodies while simultaneously being taught that they are defined by their bodies, which belong to everyone but them. This book is a lyrical gut punch of an antidote to that. I loved every second of it. Passages like “my body wanted to sing its own perspective from the wound. What has been concealed with grow barbs and flower. Tenderest act of survival” will stick with me always, and my copy is now fully highlighted with similarly gorgeous and evocative language. Loved it.

[Sue Carrie Drummond · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is for everyone. Gray explores the experience of being caught between dualities and the contradictions of womanhood. Her writing is beautifully poetic and metaphorical, yet conversational and down to earth. Even as a non-mother, there was so much in here that felt like it was just for me: love, healing, beauty, pleasure… eye opening and engrossing, I couldn’t put it down. Will be re-reading very soon!

[Rosy Davis · Rating 5 out of 5]

Proud Flesh is a beautiful, searing journey of love, pain, betrayal, healing, coping, growing - and everything hidden between. I am not a mother, but as a woman I found so many gems and jewels that I felt deeply, related to; I felt empathy as I learned about the facets of motherhood that don’t make it into the social media posts. For readers of memoirs, poetry, coming-of-age, non-fiction - Proud Flesh is a very worthy addition to your TBR.

[Aimee Russell-Smith · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really interesting book. To see it from a women's perspective of how what has happened in the past can have an impact on their everyday life and also their maternity/ postnatal period was really insightful.

[Tessa Bennett · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wow. What a stunning read. This book is truly a work of art that captures the experience of womanhood in all its gritty glory. How sweet and searing to be carried so carefully by the author through of grief, trauma, pleasure and power of this memoir. I know and love myself a little more after knowing and loving the author a little more. What a gift of a book!

[Marika · Rating 3 out of 5]

The author writes about how body traumas imprint on not only our physical bodies, but also our psyches. It began after Gray gave birth and had a wound that would not heal no matter what the Dr. did. The Dr. finally told her the term *proud flesh* which is tissue that over heals to become its own wound. That's what she had, but how to make sense of it? This is a bit of a love letter to the female body and all that it endures and what it can do.

* I read an advance copy and was not compensated.