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Eleven Hours
From the critically acclaimed author of The Virgins , Eleven Hours is an intimate exploration of the physical and mental challenges of childbirth, told with unremitting suspense and astonishing beauty.
Lore arrives at the hospital alone―no husband, no partner, no friends. Her birth plan is she wants no fetal monitor, no IV, no epidural. Franckline, a nurse in the maternity ward―herself on the verge of showing―is patient with the young woman. She knows what it’s like to worry that something might go wrong, and she understands the distress when it does. She knows as well as anyone the severe challenge of childbirth, what it does to the mind and the body.
Eleven Hours is the story of two soon-to-be mothers who, in the midst of a difficult labor, are forced to reckon with their pasts and re-create their futures. Lore must disentangle herself from a love triangle; Franckline must move beyond past traumas to accept the life that’s waiting for her. Pamela Erens moves seamlessly between their begrudging partnership and the memories evoked by so intense an for Lore, of the father of her child and her former best friend; for Franckline, of the family in Haiti from which she’s exiled. At turns urgent and lyrical, Erens’s novel is a visceral portrait of childbirth, and a vivid rendering of the way we approach motherhood―with fear and joy, anguish and awe.
Lore arrives at the hospital alone―no husband, no partner, no friends. Her birth plan is she wants no fetal monitor, no IV, no epidural. Franckline, a nurse in the maternity ward―herself on the verge of showing―is patient with the young woman. She knows what it’s like to worry that something might go wrong, and she understands the distress when it does. She knows as well as anyone the severe challenge of childbirth, what it does to the mind and the body.
Eleven Hours is the story of two soon-to-be mothers who, in the midst of a difficult labor, are forced to reckon with their pasts and re-create their futures. Lore must disentangle herself from a love triangle; Franckline must move beyond past traumas to accept the life that’s waiting for her. Pamela Erens moves seamlessly between their begrudging partnership and the memories evoked by so intense an for Lore, of the father of her child and her former best friend; for Franckline, of the family in Haiti from which she’s exiled. At turns urgent and lyrical, Erens’s novel is a visceral portrait of childbirth, and a vivid rendering of the way we approach motherhood―with fear and joy, anguish and awe.
165 pages, Paperback
First published May 2, 2016
54 people are currently reading
3902 people want to read
About the author
Pamela Erens
10 books153 followersPamela's fifth book, MIDDLEMARCH AND THE IMPERFECT LIFE, out April 2022, is part of Ig Publishing's Bookmarked series on books that have shaped an author's writing and life.
Her previous book, her first for children, was published in June 2021. MATASHA (igKids) is for readers ages 10 to 14. The novel received a starred Kirkus review, and Meg Wolitzer in the New York Times called it "thoroughly winning.... The many pleasures of this novel include its empathy and poker-faced wit, and the charms of its main character."
Apart from these, Pamela has published three novels for adults. The most recent, ELEVEN HOURS, was brought out by Tin House Books (US) and Atlantic Books (UK) in 2016 and by Keter (Israel) in 2017.
ELEVEN HOURS was named a Best Book of 2016 by NPR, The New Yorker, Kirkus, Literary Hub, Entropy, and the Irish Independent. It received starred reviews from Kirkus, Publishers Weekly, and Library Journal, and was lauded by publications ranging from The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal to specialized literary sites such as Book Riot and The Millions.
Pamela's second novel, THE VIRGINS (Tin House, 2013), was a New York Times Book Review and Chicago Tribune Editors' Choice and was named a Best Book of 2013 by The New Yorker, The New Republic, Library Journal and Salon. The novel was a finalist for the John Gardner Book Award for the best book of fiction published in 2013.
A UK edition (John Murray) of THE VIRGINS appeared in 2014, and a German one C.H. Beck) in 2015.
In 2014, Tin House Books reissued Pamela's debut novel, THE UNDERSTORY (Ironweed Press, 2007), a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize and the William Saroyan International Prize for Writing.
Pamela is the recipient of 2015 fellowships from the Bread Loaf Writers' Conference and Wesleyan Writers Conference, and a 2014 fellowship from the Sewanee Writers' Conference. Her short fiction, reviews, and essays have appeared in a wide variety of literary, cultural, and mainstream publications, including Virginia Quarterly Review, Slate, Tin House, Los Angeles Review of Books, Aeon, The Millions, The New York Times, Salon, Elle, Vogue, and O, the Oprah Magazine. For many years Pamela was an editor at Glamour magazine.
"Everyone who has the good fortune to pick up one of Erens' three novels becomes a fan. Whether writing about teenagers at boarding school (The Virgins), two mothers struggling together through labor (Eleven Hours), or a loner at the end of his tether (The Understory), Erens has a gift for making you want to spend time in her characters' company. Then you want to scout her other fans to discuss your good fortune of discovering her talents." — Reader's Digest, "23 Contemporary Writers You Should Have Read By Now" (2020)
Her previous book, her first for children, was published in June 2021. MATASHA (igKids) is for readers ages 10 to 14. The novel received a starred Kirkus review, and Meg Wolitzer in the New York Times called it "thoroughly winning.... The many pleasures of this novel include its empathy and poker-faced wit, and the charms of its main character."
Apart from these, Pamela has published three novels for adults. The most recent, ELEVEN HOURS, was brought out by Tin House Books (US) and Atlantic Books (UK) in 2016 and by Keter (Israel) in 2017.
ELEVEN HOURS was named a Best Book of 2016 by NPR, The New Yorker, Kirkus, Literary Hub, Entropy, and the Irish Independent. It received starred reviews from Kirkus, Publishers Weekly, and Library Journal, and was lauded by publications ranging from The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal to specialized literary sites such as Book Riot and The Millions.
Pamela's second novel, THE VIRGINS (Tin House, 2013), was a New York Times Book Review and Chicago Tribune Editors' Choice and was named a Best Book of 2013 by The New Yorker, The New Republic, Library Journal and Salon. The novel was a finalist for the John Gardner Book Award for the best book of fiction published in 2013.
A UK edition (John Murray) of THE VIRGINS appeared in 2014, and a German one C.H. Beck) in 2015.
In 2014, Tin House Books reissued Pamela's debut novel, THE UNDERSTORY (Ironweed Press, 2007), a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize and the William Saroyan International Prize for Writing.
Pamela is the recipient of 2015 fellowships from the Bread Loaf Writers' Conference and Wesleyan Writers Conference, and a 2014 fellowship from the Sewanee Writers' Conference. Her short fiction, reviews, and essays have appeared in a wide variety of literary, cultural, and mainstream publications, including Virginia Quarterly Review, Slate, Tin House, Los Angeles Review of Books, Aeon, The Millions, The New York Times, Salon, Elle, Vogue, and O, the Oprah Magazine. For many years Pamela was an editor at Glamour magazine.
"Everyone who has the good fortune to pick up one of Erens' three novels becomes a fan. Whether writing about teenagers at boarding school (The Virgins), two mothers struggling together through labor (Eleven Hours), or a loner at the end of his tether (The Understory), Erens has a gift for making you want to spend time in her characters' company. Then you want to scout her other fans to discuss your good fortune of discovering her talents." — Reader's Digest, "23 Contemporary Writers You Should Have Read By Now" (2020)
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 332 reviews
July 18, 2016
“In her questioning eyes her story of pain is spilling silently out. But Lore does not want to know that story. There is time, right now, for her pain only.”
DO NOT READ THIS IF YOU ARE PREGNANT.
Phew, now we got that out of the way: this tiny book was pretty amazing. I spotted it around mid-May and was curious. But I was also 37 weeks pregnant and it seemed like it might be a bad idea. I'm glad I paid attention to that gut feeling because Eleven Hours is sure to scare the hell out of any expecting mothers.
That being said, it's also a really great and emotional story about two women - Lore, the woman about to give birth, and Franckline, the Haitian nurse in the maternity ward who, as it turns out, is also pregnant, but not showing yet.
The book moves quickly from the present to past and back again, sparing no gory details as Lore heads into labor without any epidural, IV or fetal monitoring. Both women's pasts are revealed, drawing an intimate portrait of their lives that feels ever more fast-paced and compelling alongside the increasing contractions in the present.
Lore is something of a mystery at first; this strong-minded young woman who arrives at the hospital completely alone and with a detailed birth plan in hand. The mystery intrigues, and I found myself turning the pages faster and faster to discover more about both characters. But it would be wrong to sell this as a mystery. It's a character portrait of two very different women who see parts of their own lives and troubles mirrored in the other.
It's all the small touches that make Eleven Hours a memorable and emotive book: These two complete strangers supporting each other through one of the most challenging times in a woman's life; the detail of Lore's birth plan - both an indication of her stubborn nature and evidence of all the thought and planning she has put into her child's birth (her request to hold the child should it not survive is particularly heart-wrenching).
The women's stories, though interesting, are very simple and the author is careful not to cheapen their tales with melodrama. And when it comes to childbirth, who needs melodrama? The reality is dramatic enough.
It's been a while since I've been pulled so thoroughly inside the characters' worlds, and the author managed to do it in less than two hundred pages! A short, powerful read.
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November 20, 2016
Rating: 4.5* of five, rounded up
The Publisher Says: Lore arrives at the hospital alone—no husband, no partner, no friends. Her birth plan is explicit: she wants no fetal monitor, no IV, no epidural. Franckline, a nurse in the maternity ward—herself on the verge of showing—is patient with the young woman. She knows what it’s like to worry that something might go wrong, and she understands the pain when it does. She knows as well as anyone the severe challenge of childbirth, what it does to the mind and the body.
Eleven Hours is the story of two soon-to-be mothers who, in the midst of a difficult labor, are forced to reckon with their pasts and re-create their futures. Lore must disentangle herself from a love triangle; Franckline must move beyond past traumas to accept the life that’s waiting for her. Pamela Erens moves seamlessly between their begrudging friendship and the memories evoked by so intense an experience. At turns urgent and lyrical, Erens’s novel is a visceral portrait of childbirth, and a vivid rendering of the way we approach motherhood—with fear and joy, anguish and awe.
My Review: Erens takes the reader on the difficult and painful journey that is childbirth. There’s a reason they call it labor, men.
Lore is a single mother, daughter of a single mother, and a scrappy survivor of an unenviable life … if you’re outside looking down, that is. What Lore is to herself, inside herself, is a woman making her life among strangers who are more or less well-disposed to her, if fundamentally indifferent and/or unreachable by her. It isn’t that she feels anger at the upper-class snobs who took her up on her arrival in Manhattan, even though they dropped her in the middle of a seething cauldron of emotions she has no contact with and no reason to know anything about. It’s that she is humiliated by the readiness she felt to trust, even to love, the tortured betrayers of her undernourished spirit. It took her becoming pregnant by Asa, her first friend in Manhattan’s one true love, to bring Julia’s double-dealing with Lore to light. That it wasn’t, so Julia and Asa protest, personal makes the reader’s hackles rise in outraged empathy.
But here Lore is, in the midst of one of the most astounding acts imaginable, and without support. The heart bleeds! Unnecessarily, as it turns out. There is Franckline, the Haitian delivery nurse, pregnant herself but not any more sanguine about the whole idea than Lore is despite having a loving, accepting husband as the father. Her private pain surrounding motherhood goes back a long way, just like Lore’s does.
It is the temporary, enforced partnership of these damaged and indomitable women that makes a new life seem like a good idea, not simply the end of a biological process and ultimately a burden. The hard work of birthing is followed by the damned-near-impossible task of parenting. And somehow, Pamela Erens makes that seem like a survivable job, instead of a dreadful and unending sentence. Amazing, impressive feat.
For me, however, I’m just darned good and grateful I’m not a woman, five-star prose and storytelling be hanged.
The Publisher Says: Lore arrives at the hospital alone—no husband, no partner, no friends. Her birth plan is explicit: she wants no fetal monitor, no IV, no epidural. Franckline, a nurse in the maternity ward—herself on the verge of showing—is patient with the young woman. She knows what it’s like to worry that something might go wrong, and she understands the pain when it does. She knows as well as anyone the severe challenge of childbirth, what it does to the mind and the body.
Eleven Hours is the story of two soon-to-be mothers who, in the midst of a difficult labor, are forced to reckon with their pasts and re-create their futures. Lore must disentangle herself from a love triangle; Franckline must move beyond past traumas to accept the life that’s waiting for her. Pamela Erens moves seamlessly between their begrudging friendship and the memories evoked by so intense an experience. At turns urgent and lyrical, Erens’s novel is a visceral portrait of childbirth, and a vivid rendering of the way we approach motherhood—with fear and joy, anguish and awe.
My Review: Erens takes the reader on the difficult and painful journey that is childbirth. There’s a reason they call it labor, men.
Lore is a single mother, daughter of a single mother, and a scrappy survivor of an unenviable life … if you’re outside looking down, that is. What Lore is to herself, inside herself, is a woman making her life among strangers who are more or less well-disposed to her, if fundamentally indifferent and/or unreachable by her. It isn’t that she feels anger at the upper-class snobs who took her up on her arrival in Manhattan, even though they dropped her in the middle of a seething cauldron of emotions she has no contact with and no reason to know anything about. It’s that she is humiliated by the readiness she felt to trust, even to love, the tortured betrayers of her undernourished spirit. It took her becoming pregnant by Asa, her first friend in Manhattan’s one true love, to bring Julia’s double-dealing with Lore to light. That it wasn’t, so Julia and Asa protest, personal makes the reader’s hackles rise in outraged empathy.
How naive Lore had been, despite being the daughter of a father no one spoke of, despite the strange, incomplete conversations at her mother’s deathbed; how again and again she was caught up short by the discovery that other people had stories they didn’t tell, or told stories that weren’t entirely true. How mostly you got odd chunks torn from the whole, impossible truly to understand in their damaged form.
But here Lore is, in the midst of one of the most astounding acts imaginable, and without support. The heart bleeds! Unnecessarily, as it turns out. There is Franckline, the Haitian delivery nurse, pregnant herself but not any more sanguine about the whole idea than Lore is despite having a loving, accepting husband as the father. Her private pain surrounding motherhood goes back a long way, just like Lore’s does.
Her mother’s quiet disapproval and withdrawal was a death in itself, and Franckline’s despair at it was transmitted, she was sure of it, to the child. She transgressed twice, first by making the child, then by giving it her despair, the despair that left it unable to live.
It is the temporary, enforced partnership of these damaged and indomitable women that makes a new life seem like a good idea, not simply the end of a biological process and ultimately a burden. The hard work of birthing is followed by the damned-near-impossible task of parenting. And somehow, Pamela Erens makes that seem like a survivable job, instead of a dreadful and unending sentence. Amazing, impressive feat.
For me, however, I’m just darned good and grateful I’m not a woman, five-star prose and storytelling be hanged.
May 25, 2016
I was complaining with some reader friends about how there are hardly any books that write about pregnancy or birth in a way that feels real when one of them mentioned ELEVEN HOURS as an exception. I'm frustrated with how pregnant women are treated in books and movies (always noble, always rubbing their bellies) and Tin House kindly sent me a copy when they saw our conversation. This book is just what it appears to be, the story of one woman's birth through her own eyes and the eyes of her nurse, who is pregnant herself and hasn't told anyone yet.
Lore is alone, things ended badly with the boyfriend who fathered her child, but she is determined and stubborn and sees no reason why she can't do this on her own, complete with a long and detailed birth plan. Lore's solitude is crucial to the narrative, it gives Lore nothing to focus on but her labor and her fear. I can see how you could be in Lore's position and feel empowered to have a birth experience on your own, but having had two children myself the idea of giving birth alone terrifies me.
When you have a baby, especially if you don't have an epidural, you meet a part of yourself you probably never met before. You become acquainted with pain in a new way. You find that you make sounds you didn't know you could make. Reading about Lore's experience reminded me so keenly of my own births, even though mine were happy and pleasant and used drugs that (mostly) worked. Erens has tapped into the heart of the experience that is lonely and scared and dangerous and it's a well-told and important story.
Erens' style is that modern prose that flows forward like a river, her narrative moves between the two characters mostly effortlessly, but it's rooted in their thoughts and experiences to keep you as a reader feeling grounded until the very end of the book. The last few pages are different and left me somewhat unsatisfied, but didn't affect the power of the overall narrative.
I wouldn't recommend reading it while you're pregnant, especially if it's your first (every episode of A Baby Story that didn't go perfectly smoothly haunted me during my pregnancy). But otherwise, this is the kind of book we just don't see much and that's a real shame.
Lore is alone, things ended badly with the boyfriend who fathered her child, but she is determined and stubborn and sees no reason why she can't do this on her own, complete with a long and detailed birth plan. Lore's solitude is crucial to the narrative, it gives Lore nothing to focus on but her labor and her fear. I can see how you could be in Lore's position and feel empowered to have a birth experience on your own, but having had two children myself the idea of giving birth alone terrifies me.
When you have a baby, especially if you don't have an epidural, you meet a part of yourself you probably never met before. You become acquainted with pain in a new way. You find that you make sounds you didn't know you could make. Reading about Lore's experience reminded me so keenly of my own births, even though mine were happy and pleasant and used drugs that (mostly) worked. Erens has tapped into the heart of the experience that is lonely and scared and dangerous and it's a well-told and important story.
Erens' style is that modern prose that flows forward like a river, her narrative moves between the two characters mostly effortlessly, but it's rooted in their thoughts and experiences to keep you as a reader feeling grounded until the very end of the book. The last few pages are different and left me somewhat unsatisfied, but didn't affect the power of the overall narrative.
I wouldn't recommend reading it while you're pregnant, especially if it's your first (every episode of A Baby Story that didn't go perfectly smoothly haunted me during my pregnancy). But otherwise, this is the kind of book we just don't see much and that's a real shame.
August 4, 2016
“She’s in labor,” Franckline explains, calmly, and the articulation of the obvious makes the disproving woman’s eyes lose their sharpness. She tips her head in acquiescence and turns to her friend. “She’s going to have a baby.”
This was a strange little book - less than 200 pages, following two pregnant women as they become close at a hospital where one is about to give birth. There were no chapter breaks and the narratives flickered from the past to present.
I really liked the compelling writing, the way the author pulled the reader into the minds of Lore and Franckline, one a single, soon-to-be mother, the other a nurse.
Lore has a very specific birth plan - she doesn't want an IV, fetal monitor, or epidural. When the doctors tell her her ring is cutting off blood flow and she may lose a finger if they don't remove it, Lore isn't even remotely concerned.
Franckline is from Haiti and disowned by her family. Ever since she was young, she's been gifted with assisting women give birth. When she first meets Lore, she finds the quiet, lonely woman who has no problem saying "no" strange, but she is patient and looks after her.
These two women's narratives flowed together so they almost felt like one mind. The author showed the emotions pregnancy brings: fear, anxiety, and happiness. Lore loved her unborn child, but she couldn't help remembering her past and wondering how she would provide for her new son or daughter. She decided she would be both the mother and father of the child.
“These last months Lore has often woken in the morning aware of some fearsome fact she cannot quite place. She has groped uneasily until finally, with a stab of fear, she remembers again: The baby will have to come out.”
I enjoyed this unique, unsettling story, but by the time I finished it I was left wanting something more. Erens impressively managed to develop the plot and characters very well in the short duration of pages, but I would have liked to see how Franckline and Lore's stories played out even later. The ending felt too unfinished.
Read
July 13, 2016The currently pregnant should not read this book. Everybody else should at least consider it. It’s a powerful portrayal of childbirth, about what happens when expectations don’t meet reality and what it’s like to face giving birth on one’s own. With the exception of flashbacks that explain the lives of the two main characters — one woman in labor and another working as her nurse — the entire novel takes place in the hospital. It’s the best, most-detailed depiction of labor I’ve ever read. I wish we had more books like these.
-Rebecca Hussey
from The Best Books We Read In June 2016: http://bookriot.com/2016/06/29/riot-r...
-Rebecca Hussey
from The Best Books We Read In June 2016: http://bookriot.com/2016/06/29/riot-r...
June 14, 2016
Birth is the world’s most universal experience. We’ve either given birth or we’ve been born…yet strangely, there are no novels that I know of that focus on the labor experience.
Pamela Erens takes on that experience in Eleven Hours. I’ve read this author before – loved her debut novel, The Understory, and her second book, The Virgins. I know I can count on Ms. Erens to create poignant and unflinchingly vivid scenes.
She does succeed in her depiction of Lore Tannenbaum, a 31-year-old single mother who arrives at the hospital alone, save for a detailed birth plan that she wants followed. Her nurse, Franckline, has gone through a series of miscarriages and is now pregnant anew, and anxious that she will again lose her fetus.
When the spotlight shines on these two women, the book shines. There is an unrelenting rhythm to the book, the anxiety-producing long wait, the brutality of childbirth, the sense of wonder of a child’s emergence. The last 40 pages are “grab ahold of your seat” tension-filled.
And yet. There is also a backstory here that intermittently takes up about half of the book in totality. The story is of Lore’s one-time fianc��, Asa, and the woman they both love, Julia, an artist. The love triangle seemed derivative to me; in any event, it was hard for me to connect to Lore’s life story. Perhaps one of the reasons is that in a mere 157 pages, there wasn’t enough dimensionality for me to intuit or feel her emotions and totally understand her choices. Franckline, too, seemed more like a representative character, culled from stories of Caribbean nurses. The only thing that felt real to me was her wavering and fear for her own child…and for Lore’s.
So my reading experience was mixed. I very much wanted to like it more.
Pamela Erens takes on that experience in Eleven Hours. I’ve read this author before – loved her debut novel, The Understory, and her second book, The Virgins. I know I can count on Ms. Erens to create poignant and unflinchingly vivid scenes.
She does succeed in her depiction of Lore Tannenbaum, a 31-year-old single mother who arrives at the hospital alone, save for a detailed birth plan that she wants followed. Her nurse, Franckline, has gone through a series of miscarriages and is now pregnant anew, and anxious that she will again lose her fetus.
When the spotlight shines on these two women, the book shines. There is an unrelenting rhythm to the book, the anxiety-producing long wait, the brutality of childbirth, the sense of wonder of a child’s emergence. The last 40 pages are “grab ahold of your seat” tension-filled.
And yet. There is also a backstory here that intermittently takes up about half of the book in totality. The story is of Lore’s one-time fianc��, Asa, and the woman they both love, Julia, an artist. The love triangle seemed derivative to me; in any event, it was hard for me to connect to Lore’s life story. Perhaps one of the reasons is that in a mere 157 pages, there wasn’t enough dimensionality for me to intuit or feel her emotions and totally understand her choices. Franckline, too, seemed more like a representative character, culled from stories of Caribbean nurses. The only thing that felt real to me was her wavering and fear for her own child…and for Lore’s.
So my reading experience was mixed. I very much wanted to like it more.
May 30, 2016
I am a home birth midwife. I liked this book a lot...for a time. it presented a very realistic view of hospital birth. and the back stories of these two women were very interesting and drew me in. the end became alarmist and presented a very rare emergency, which made me mad because it feels like it just plays into the scare tactics done to women to keep them in line.
a good and quick read though.
a good and quick read though.
December 25, 2016
Beautifully written book. I randomly found it on the New Books shelf at my local library. Strange that I even wanted to read it, since I don't have much desire to be pregnant or have children. But this book totally pulled me in and even made me cry a little! I felt like I was really there, going through everything with the characters.
May 24, 2017
Really powerful story about labour, and why Lore is delivering her baby alone, and the worries the midwife has both for the woman she is looking after, and herself. It was the most perfect (and excruciating) description of pain I've ever read.
Highly recommended, but perhaps, if you're pregnant, only read it after you've delivered.
Highly recommended, but perhaps, if you're pregnant, only read it after you've delivered.
May 3, 2016
Received this book as an ARC from Tin House Books.
Destiny would have it that when two people meet, especially when they are of disparate personalities and cultures as Lore and Franckline, the main characters created by Pamela Erens for her third novel, Eleven Hours, they have something to learn from each other. Perhaps there’s a need, a bit of karma they have to work out between themselves. Lore, a young white teacher, arrives alone at the maternity ward of a New York City hospital with a birth plan so dense it may as well be a legal brief. Franckline, a Haitian immigrant in the early stages of her own unannounced pregnancy, is the nurse overseeing Lore’s labor. She recognizes right away the thorny patient may have something to teach her.
“This girl in room 7, so solitary, so wary, seems a sort of warning. Franckline should not become like that, a person too shut up in herself, too frightened and proud to share her pain. There is a side of her, she knows, that gravitates in that direction, toward that pride, that aloneness.”
Lore’s pride is actually more the response of an injured person. Betrayed by the father of her baby, she seems to chide herself for all the signs she missed. Her birth plan could even be a “not again” notion on her part—she attempts to wrangle control once more by foreseeing, she thinks, every possibility and accounting for every detail of the birth. But Franckline seems to be there to let Lore know life will happen anyway, despite such careful planning.
A bond develops between the two women and its formation is the core story of Eleven Hours. It’s a swift read, just 175 pages, but nothing about the book feels rushed, including the well-observed progression of Lore’s labor. In all the right moments Erens astutely relates how the insistent pain of childbirth can make minutes feel like hours and a short walk down a hallway seem like an expedition across the Sahara. She takes risks to maintain a sense of immediacy: point of view shifts going back and forth between Lore and Franckline happen without warning and can be disconcerting in the early pages. So often workshop instructors warn writers against muddying the point of view waters. But having read the author’s first two books, The Understory: A Novel (2007) and The Virgins (2013), I know she can tell a great story in unconventional ways. In other words, good writers can bend the rules. And Erens is an excellent writer.
Eventually I came to see what Erens was doing as all of a piece—the two women as one voice communicating all the various experiences of womanhood: love, loss, fear, jealousy, hope, anxiety, just to name a few. Lore and Franckline are not as different as it seems and neither are we as readers. This provides another level of immediacy, opening the doorway to our own connection with the book as we see ourselves within and making the eleven hours experienced in the novel time well spent.
Destiny would have it that when two people meet, especially when they are of disparate personalities and cultures as Lore and Franckline, the main characters created by Pamela Erens for her third novel, Eleven Hours, they have something to learn from each other. Perhaps there’s a need, a bit of karma they have to work out between themselves. Lore, a young white teacher, arrives alone at the maternity ward of a New York City hospital with a birth plan so dense it may as well be a legal brief. Franckline, a Haitian immigrant in the early stages of her own unannounced pregnancy, is the nurse overseeing Lore’s labor. She recognizes right away the thorny patient may have something to teach her.
“This girl in room 7, so solitary, so wary, seems a sort of warning. Franckline should not become like that, a person too shut up in herself, too frightened and proud to share her pain. There is a side of her, she knows, that gravitates in that direction, toward that pride, that aloneness.”
Lore’s pride is actually more the response of an injured person. Betrayed by the father of her baby, she seems to chide herself for all the signs she missed. Her birth plan could even be a “not again” notion on her part—she attempts to wrangle control once more by foreseeing, she thinks, every possibility and accounting for every detail of the birth. But Franckline seems to be there to let Lore know life will happen anyway, despite such careful planning.
A bond develops between the two women and its formation is the core story of Eleven Hours. It’s a swift read, just 175 pages, but nothing about the book feels rushed, including the well-observed progression of Lore’s labor. In all the right moments Erens astutely relates how the insistent pain of childbirth can make minutes feel like hours and a short walk down a hallway seem like an expedition across the Sahara. She takes risks to maintain a sense of immediacy: point of view shifts going back and forth between Lore and Franckline happen without warning and can be disconcerting in the early pages. So often workshop instructors warn writers against muddying the point of view waters. But having read the author’s first two books, The Understory: A Novel (2007) and The Virgins (2013), I know she can tell a great story in unconventional ways. In other words, good writers can bend the rules. And Erens is an excellent writer.
Eventually I came to see what Erens was doing as all of a piece—the two women as one voice communicating all the various experiences of womanhood: love, loss, fear, jealousy, hope, anxiety, just to name a few. Lore and Franckline are not as different as it seems and neither are we as readers. This provides another level of immediacy, opening the doorway to our own connection with the book as we see ourselves within and making the eleven hours experienced in the novel time well spent.
February 19, 2020
A short novel framed around one woman’s labour. Lore arrives at the hospital alone and self-contained after a painful split with her partner, but over the course of her labour comes to rely on and trust her delivery nurse, Franckline. I thought the extended depiction of labour was very powerful - almost too much so, I was reading it on the subway and felt so queasy at one point that I thought I was coming down with something. But it’s very detailed and well-done. It made me realize how little birth and labour feature in most literature. The residual plot about Lore’s breakup and the nurse’s background felt more just sketched in.
December 9, 2023
Thanks to a forceful recommendation from a dear friend, I bought this at a used bookstore. Found the writing to be incredibly vivid and the story to be equal parts gripping and stirring. Didn’t care for the ending though: zooming out from what was a wonderfully intertwined subjective two hander between a pregnant, lonesome patient awaiting the birth of her baby and an invisibly pregnant nurse to an adult multiple perspectives didn’t work for me. Inspired by the writing and the very detailed descriptions of labor and child birth and the anticipation of motherhood
June 4, 2023
Very compelling.
March 22, 2016
I feel safe in saying that every woman who has been responsible for growing a fetus for approximately nine months and then delivering that precious new person into the world will find this short novel, Eleven Hours precious. Most women who have been pregnant remember that time as one that is unique, life changing, and both joyous and full of fear, and sometimes desperation. A young woman named Lore enters a NYC hospital alone and meets her delivery nurse Franckline, who is pregnant, early days, and with her own history that is as mysterious as what we learn about Lore. The two women bond with an understanding and acts of empathy and compassion that often only women can understand. The novel is slim - eleven hours - perhaps a nursing shift or the hours it takes to reach delivery and though the novel and the time is short, the whole world changes at the end of that journey. Erin's story is a joy to read.
Copy received courtesy of NetGalley and Tin House Books.
Copy received courtesy of NetGalley and Tin House Books.
February 6, 2017
I second the other reviewers who recommend not reading this if you're pregnant or hoping to be sometime soon. No pulling punches here. But at six weeks postpartum, I was absolutely riveted by this lightning-fast account of a woman named Lore's labor where we gradually learn more and more about her background, as well as the background of her nurse, a Haitian immigrant. I found so many things in here to be spot on as I reflected on my labor, like Lore's irritation with being tethered to a fetal monitor and her impulse to push hard against something during contractions. I also thought the choice to not have any chapter or section breaks was kind of brilliant, as it called to mind that "the only way out is through" feeling of being in labor. 4.5 stars.
June 30, 2016
What a wonderful, visceral book. Review up soon.
August 16, 2018
This is really quite special. Powerful, exhilarating, intense, urgent, harrowing - all pull quotes from my copy and all entirely accurate. Written with great skill and human insight, this unexpected pleasure will surely stay with me for a long time.
July 4, 2016
I fell in love with Erens' writing in The Virgins, and while this book is a completely different animal, what it shares with her previous novel is that once again, Erens has set herself a seemingly impossible task. In The Virgins, Erens chose for her narrator a character that existed only on the obsessive periphery of the protagonists, and must admit then that much of the story is only his own invention. In Eleven Hours, Erens limits herself to only the stretch of time that spans a hospital labor. There is an intense intimacy that blossoms between the two women, the laboring woman, and the secretly pregnant L&D nurse attending her. As readers, we're given glimpses into the secrets both women carry while the women themselves exchange little more than what's necessary to accomplish the work in front of them--the delivery of Lore's baby. Still there's a deep authenticity to the bond that grows between them. But of course we know that this is not the beginning of a friendship. This relationship, powerful as it is, begins and ends in single stretch of time. One of the real strengths of the novel is the incredible risk it takes with resolution, or more accurately, the lack thereof. Like the women themselves, our intimacy with these characters is fleeting. For me, this makes the novel even more powerful in it's mimicry of the bonds we can build but not retain with the significant strangers who pass through our lives.
May 17, 2016
This is a masterpiece. A recently separated woman, Lore, checks into the hospital alone to deliver her first baby. She is assisted by Haitian immigrant nurse, Franckline. This book is literally told in real time. It takes about eleven hours to read (I’m slow) and it is probably one of the few books where the present tense is clearly the right tense to use.
Erens skillfully weaves the two women’s stories together. We glide from one perspective to the other, and in those pauses between contractions we learn the backstories of both women. Their stories are fascinating and it must have been tempting to make this a longer book with more details on the lives of both women. But this is a story of a delivery.
I’m sure that this will find a large audience of women readers. I hope that men will read it too. It’s an action story. The tension and drama are almost unbearable. When Lore got to eight centimeters there was no way I could put the book down until I was finished.
I would give this book six stars if I could.
Erens skillfully weaves the two women’s stories together. We glide from one perspective to the other, and in those pauses between contractions we learn the backstories of both women. Their stories are fascinating and it must have been tempting to make this a longer book with more details on the lives of both women. But this is a story of a delivery.
I’m sure that this will find a large audience of women readers. I hope that men will read it too. It’s an action story. The tension and drama are almost unbearable. When Lore got to eight centimeters there was no way I could put the book down until I was finished.
I would give this book six stars if I could.
February 20, 2018
Now if you're pregnant (especially w your 1st), don't read this. And as someone who's already had two, it was still a very emotional read. Lore arrives at the hospital, all alone, feeling like she's going to give birth at any second but she's just 3cm along. Her nurse Franckline is herself pregnant, something she wasn't expecting and something she worries about. Such lyrical writing as we follow these 2 women through labor, through their past
August 29, 2019
Both Lore and Franckline are pregnant. Lore has just come into the hospital to have her baby. She is alone, and distant. Franckline is newly pregnant, and worries about telling her husband. She doesn't want to disappoint him, or bring him more heartache.
They are caught in this beautiful dance, as Lore's child is about to be born. A technical dance of control, and a need for connection in one of the most isolating times in a womans life.
A visceral and sometimes intense look at motherhood and childbirth. This book speaks to the connections that women have, and the intense need for that connection. This story revolves around confronting your past, and having hope for your future.
They are caught in this beautiful dance, as Lore's child is about to be born. A technical dance of control, and a need for connection in one of the most isolating times in a womans life.
A visceral and sometimes intense look at motherhood and childbirth. This book speaks to the connections that women have, and the intense need for that connection. This story revolves around confronting your past, and having hope for your future.
June 13, 2020
A vivid depiction of women’s struggle with the options they face in life regarding paternity. Do I or don’t I is only one of many questions they seek to resolve and that is complicated by life and living it
January 6, 2024
It’s a story that explores the themes of childbirth, the unpredictability of life, and the complicated relationships. The setting of the baby delivery ward over 11 hours timeframe provides a unique and intense background for these themes to play out. The story is focusing on the authentic experiences of the two women and the challenges they face during the maternal journey, highlighting the raw and emotional moments that come with bringing new life into the world. Highly recommend!
April 27, 2024
A gripping and visceral tale of one woman’s labor and the nurse who cares for her. I couldn’t put it down. Excellent writing. I loved the beautifully crafted flashbacks and memories.
April 29, 2016
Tin House Books and NetGalley provided me with an electronic copy of Eleven Hours, in exchange for an honest review.
Lore Tannebaum has arrived at the hospital to have her baby, but she is adamant that it be on her terms. No fetal monitor and no IV, she insists. Franckline, her labor and delivery nurse who is pregnant herself, helps to see Lore through the eleven hours at the hospital before the birth.
I just never felt any connection to the characters in Eleven Hours. The constant shifts in focus from memories to present day, as well as the shifts in perspective from Lore to Franckline, took away from the continuity of the story. Eleven Hours should have been a compelling story, but the way in which it was presented allowed the book to fall flat. It is a very realistic portrayal of a woman in labor, despite the fact that the book is so brief. The author never explains Lore's motivations or reasons for why she has set up her birth plan in such a strict manner. In the end, it is just a book about a woman in labor, intending to rely only on herself to make it through.
Lore Tannebaum has arrived at the hospital to have her baby, but she is adamant that it be on her terms. No fetal monitor and no IV, she insists. Franckline, her labor and delivery nurse who is pregnant herself, helps to see Lore through the eleven hours at the hospital before the birth.
I just never felt any connection to the characters in Eleven Hours. The constant shifts in focus from memories to present day, as well as the shifts in perspective from Lore to Franckline, took away from the continuity of the story. Eleven Hours should have been a compelling story, but the way in which it was presented allowed the book to fall flat. It is a very realistic portrayal of a woman in labor, despite the fact that the book is so brief. The author never explains Lore's motivations or reasons for why she has set up her birth plan in such a strict manner. In the end, it is just a book about a woman in labor, intending to rely only on herself to make it through.
June 3, 2016
It was fantastic, and I'm truly grateful I'm not pregnant as I read this. I delivered my boy 2.5 years ago, and still winced with remembered pain with every contraction Lore faced. It's a partial character study which mentions the possibility of having not enough time to know anyone's story within the time allotted after the start of labor pains until the delivery. But we still get enough of an insight into the two women; Lore, the single mom-to-be in labor, and Franckline, her nurse, also pregnant but who hasn't told anyone because she's afraid she'll lose it the way she has before.
But the book is primarily about the whole process itself, the good, the bad and the horrible painful when will this end feeling of it. And if that's not your thing, this book isn't for you. If you're pregnant, avoid. Really. Read it after the safe delivery of your baby.
But the book is primarily about the whole process itself, the good, the bad and the horrible painful when will this end feeling of it. And if that's not your thing, this book isn't for you. If you're pregnant, avoid. Really. Read it after the safe delivery of your baby.
April 14, 2018
3.5 stars
I tried to escape my comfort zone for a day or two with this book, because it deals with a topic (pregnancy) that I tend to avoid. Even writing that word made me cringe.
I'm writing this a week after I finished it and it's difficult to even recall the names of the two women involved. It was one of those books that you really enjoyed while you were reading it but then you realize that something very important was missing; the whole POINT of this novel is non-existent.
We have two women, very different from each other but both pregnant. We get some backstory and some insights into their life. Then something happens and the book is over.
So? What was the point of all of this? I honestly don't know.
I tried to escape my comfort zone for a day or two with this book, because it deals with a topic (pregnancy) that I tend to avoid. Even writing that word made me cringe.
I'm writing this a week after I finished it and it's difficult to even recall the names of the two women involved. It was one of those books that you really enjoyed while you were reading it but then you realize that something very important was missing; the whole POINT of this novel is non-existent.
We have two women, very different from each other but both pregnant. We get some backstory and some insights into their life. Then something happens and the book is over.
So? What was the point of all of this? I honestly don't know.
May 13, 2017
4.5
I have two minor complaints about this book. Spacing could have been used to clarify when we were moving from one main characters head to another's. There were points where the narration shifted perspective so suddenly that was confusing and took me out of the story.
My second complaint is that a *little* more closure would be nice. I understand that thematically, much of the book is about how we're all just ships passing in the night, but again, just a tiny bit more resolution would have been nice.
I have two minor complaints about this book. Spacing could have been used to clarify when we were moving from one main characters head to another's. There were points where the narration shifted perspective so suddenly that was confusing and took me out of the story.
My second complaint is that a *little* more closure would be nice. I understand that thematically, much of the book is about how we're all just ships passing in the night, but again, just a tiny bit more resolution would have been nice.
June 12, 2016
Even though this was a very short book, it felt REALLLY REALLLLY LONG! I didn't find this gripping in the least. It did feel realistic (which I appreciated to a certain extent),. But then came the ending. Even though the author was probably going for tense in the ending, it was a little too late. I was to the point where I just didn't care. I liked the nurse though. I wish all labor/delivery nurses were as nice and considerate as she was.
December 11, 2016
This is a very smart book in many ways. The frame of eleven-hours, the two interesting young women in different stages of relationships and possible motherhood, and the way the past is weaved together with the present. Pamela Erens shows not only the women, but also where they come from, and gradually, their inner worlds open up along with the body that gives birth. The ending is admirable-it leaves this fictional world exactly at the right point to keep the readers still involved.
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