What do you think?
Rate this book
A Lie Someone Told You About Yourself
“There are some stories that require as much courage to write as they do art. Peter Ho Davies’s achingly honest, searingly comic portrait of fatherhood is just such a story...The world needs more stories like this one, more of this kind of courage, more of this kind of love.” —Sigrid Nunez, National Book Award-winning author of The Friend
A heartbreaking, soul-baring novel about the repercussions of choice that “will strike a resonant chord with parents everywhere,” (starred Kirkus) from the award-winning author of The Welsh Girl and The Fortunes
A Lie Someone Told You About Yourself traces the complex consequences of one of the most personal yet public, intimate yet political experiences a family can have: to have a child, and conversely, the decision not to have a child. A first pregnancy is interrupted by test results at once catastrophic and uncertain. A second pregnancy ends in a fraught birth, a beloved child, the purgatory of further tests—and questions that reverberate down the years.
When does sorrow turn to shame?
When does love become labor?
When does chance become choice?
When does a diagnosis become destiny?
And when does fact become fiction?
This spare, graceful narrative chronicles the flux of parenthood, marriage, and the day-to-day practice of loving someone. As challenging as it is vulnerable, as furious as it is tender, as touching as it is darkly comic, Peter Ho Davies's new novel is an unprecedented depiction of fatherhood.
A heartbreaking, soul-baring novel about the repercussions of choice that “will strike a resonant chord with parents everywhere,” (starred Kirkus) from the award-winning author of The Welsh Girl and The Fortunes
A Lie Someone Told You About Yourself traces the complex consequences of one of the most personal yet public, intimate yet political experiences a family can have: to have a child, and conversely, the decision not to have a child. A first pregnancy is interrupted by test results at once catastrophic and uncertain. A second pregnancy ends in a fraught birth, a beloved child, the purgatory of further tests—and questions that reverberate down the years.
When does sorrow turn to shame?
When does love become labor?
When does chance become choice?
When does a diagnosis become destiny?
And when does fact become fiction?
This spare, graceful narrative chronicles the flux of parenthood, marriage, and the day-to-day practice of loving someone. As challenging as it is vulnerable, as furious as it is tender, as touching as it is darkly comic, Peter Ho Davies's new novel is an unprecedented depiction of fatherhood.
239 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 5, 2021
285 people are currently reading
10288 people want to read
About the author
Peter Ho Davies
23 books183 followersPeter Ho Davies is a contemporary British writer of Welsh and Chinese descent. He was born and raised in Coventry. Davies studied physics at Manchester University then English at Cambridge University.
In 1992 he moved to the United States as a professor of creative writing. He has taught at the University of Oregon and Emory University and is now on the faculty of the MFA Program in Creative Writing at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor.
He has published two collections of short fiction, The Ugliest House in the World (1998) and Equal Love (2000). His first novel, The Welsh Girl came out in 2007.
Davies is a recipient of fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown.
In 1992 he moved to the United States as a professor of creative writing. He has taught at the University of Oregon and Emory University and is now on the faculty of the MFA Program in Creative Writing at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor.
He has published two collections of short fiction, The Ugliest House in the World (1998) and Equal Love (2000). His first novel, The Welsh Girl came out in 2007.
Davies is a recipient of fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 30 of 553 reviews
October 10, 2020
We are in a kind of golden age when it comes to writing about parenthood. Except not exactly, because really that writing is almost entirely about motherhood. Every now and then you'll find a nice memoir, but when I googled "books about fatherhood" I was given suggestions like TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD (written by a woman, and about a father rather than about fatherhood) and THE ROAD (no comment). So I was very pleased to read this lovely, slim novel that taps into many of the feelings of being a parent, full of the complexity and the paradoxes, that is also distinctly from a father's point of view.
When it comes to parenting, he is a caring and available father, a professor with a schedule that lets him make breakfast and do school pickup. But, of course, it is not that simple. Parenting is a chore and a joy, your child is a mystery and a miracle. The narrative, which comes in short sections is written at a bit of a distance, which lets us flit forward through months and years when we need to. The moments he describes are familiar and intimate, and our protagonist is able to deftly pick apart his own complicated emotions about his child and himself, the kinds of things parents feel but do not admit in public. Writing about parenting requires that kind of self-awareness, a willingness to acknowledge the parts of the story we do not share with others but hold inside ourselves, worried about what it really means about us and what it really means for our children. It's impressively done, and it is still a book about the parents rather than the child, which is as it should be.
This book on parenthood is also a book about abortion, which isn't really a conflict, but rather two sides of the same coin. As the book begins, our narrator and his wife have just found out that that the baby they're expecting most likely has a chromosomal abnormality with serious complications. Later in the book, he will spend some time volunteering as a clinic escort. He knows these decisions are different for him than they would be for a woman, but he still grapples with his own feelings and what his place is in this kind of decision.
Novels about fathers and sons generally start when the child is a teenager or even an adult, but this one stops before we get there. It is like men cannot be parents until the other work has been completed, until the child is no longer a child. But Davies is not afraid to lay out the intricacies of life with an infant, and I cannot remember the last time I read a book written by a man that did not just share them but outline them in great detail, that was concerned above all with what it is and how it feels to be a father. I am not saying these books don't exist, but we certainly could use more of them and this is a good start.
When it comes to parenting, he is a caring and available father, a professor with a schedule that lets him make breakfast and do school pickup. But, of course, it is not that simple. Parenting is a chore and a joy, your child is a mystery and a miracle. The narrative, which comes in short sections is written at a bit of a distance, which lets us flit forward through months and years when we need to. The moments he describes are familiar and intimate, and our protagonist is able to deftly pick apart his own complicated emotions about his child and himself, the kinds of things parents feel but do not admit in public. Writing about parenting requires that kind of self-awareness, a willingness to acknowledge the parts of the story we do not share with others but hold inside ourselves, worried about what it really means about us and what it really means for our children. It's impressively done, and it is still a book about the parents rather than the child, which is as it should be.
This book on parenthood is also a book about abortion, which isn't really a conflict, but rather two sides of the same coin. As the book begins, our narrator and his wife have just found out that that the baby they're expecting most likely has a chromosomal abnormality with serious complications. Later in the book, he will spend some time volunteering as a clinic escort. He knows these decisions are different for him than they would be for a woman, but he still grapples with his own feelings and what his place is in this kind of decision.
Novels about fathers and sons generally start when the child is a teenager or even an adult, but this one stops before we get there. It is like men cannot be parents until the other work has been completed, until the child is no longer a child. But Davies is not afraid to lay out the intricacies of life with an infant, and I cannot remember the last time I read a book written by a man that did not just share them but outline them in great detail, that was concerned above all with what it is and how it feels to be a father. I am not saying these books don't exist, but we certainly could use more of them and this is a good start.
April 11, 2021
3.5 A decision a couple makes, a decision that at the time they felt was right, that there was little choice. A personal decision that continues to haunt, the father, the mother, the marriage and even their view of the child they eventually have. This child, a son, different, having his own difficulties. A pervading sense of shame, failure, did they do the right thing, are they doing the right thing now? Thoughts, doubts, second guessing, atonement.
The father, mother, son are never named. The book is told mainly from the father's point of view. An intimate look at fatherhood, sex, marriage parenting and decisions made. This is a unique read and an important subject but also presented me with a conundrum. It is told realistically I believe, though of course I'm not a man so may not be the best judge. But are men likely to read this book? And while the subject is an important one I always felt as if I was being held at a distancee. To be honest, reading over 200 pages of someone thoughts, regrets, which were often repeated, can get tedious. So ultimately my feelings, thoughts on this book are mixed.
ARC from Netgalley
The father, mother, son are never named. The book is told mainly from the father's point of view. An intimate look at fatherhood, sex, marriage parenting and decisions made. This is a unique read and an important subject but also presented me with a conundrum. It is told realistically I believe, though of course I'm not a man so may not be the best judge. But are men likely to read this book? And while the subject is an important one I always felt as if I was being held at a distancee. To be honest, reading over 200 pages of someone thoughts, regrets, which were often repeated, can get tedious. So ultimately my feelings, thoughts on this book are mixed.
ARC from Netgalley
July 13, 2021
At its best, autofiction is an intriguing blend of memoir and fiction, all of it true and universal in appeal. Davies’ minimalist approach – short sections skating over the months and years, wryly pulling out representative moments here and there, all in a mere 180 pages – could hardly be more different from Karl Ove Knausgaard’s, but both are equally dedicated to the unique alchemy of crystallizing fatherhood by illuminating its daily heartaches and joys.
Years ago, “the writer” and his wife were presented with a choice. When genetic tests indicated mosaicism, they terminated their first pregnancy. Instead of a little girl, they later had a baby boy who presented his own challenges, including delayed development and possible ASD. Years later, the abortion still haunts “the father.” He attempts to exorcise his shame (the title = how Anaïs Nin defined it) by volunteering at an abortion clinic. Escorting patients to and from their cars, ignoring the taunts of protestors, he lives out his conviction that you can never fully know what others are going through and why they make the decisions they do.
Davies gets the tone just right in this novella, showing both sides of parenthood and voicing the things you aren’t allowed to think, or at least not admit to (starting with abortion, which would-be fathers aren’t expected to have strong feelings about either way, since their body is not involved). Soon after the writer’s son is born: “He feels about himself for love, the way he might pat his pockets for his wallet and keys. Do I love him yet? Is this love?” As the boy grows into a figure of pathos: “All the things they’ve imagined him growing up to be: A basketball player, a fireman, a chef. [vs. what he actually seems to be] Allergic, friendless, autistic.” Davies also has a gift for zinging phrases, like “the deification of babies” and “the baby-industrial complex” of Babies “R” Us. He impishly divides kidhood into a schema something like the seven ages of man, from “the Age of dinosaurs” to “the Age of screens,” and the writer’s dialogues with his wife are bitingly funny.
But what I most loved was the rumination on the role that chance plays in a life. “All the coin flips. All the what ifs. Like the litany of prompts he uses in writing class. Heads and tales.” The writer has a background in physics (as Davies himself does), so often brings up Schrödinger’s cat as a metaphor – in any situation, things might have gone either way. Now that the possibilities have narrowed to one and the path has been started, what will you do? The treatment of luck, in particular, led me to think of this as a cross between Larry’s Party by Carol Shields and What Are You Going Through by Sigrid Nunez. The style is similar to Jenny Offill’s; another similar and nearly contemporaneous release is Brood by Jackie Polzin.
I know I read The Fortunes back in 2016 but I retain virtually no memory of it. Davies’s prose, themes, and voice stood out much more for me here. I’ll try his novel The Welsh Girl, too, maybe even for book club later this year.
Favorite lines:
“this is also what the internet is for, he thinks. If online porn universalizes shame, social media universalizes judgment. Both exercises in self-gratification.”
“An older colleague told him once cats were baby substitutes. ‘They weigh the same, they sleep on you, they roll around on their backs kicking their legs in the air. They mewl.’”
For more on abortion from a male perspective: The Cider House Rules by John Irving and Ars Botanica by Tim Taranto.
Years ago, “the writer” and his wife were presented with a choice. When genetic tests indicated mosaicism, they terminated their first pregnancy. Instead of a little girl, they later had a baby boy who presented his own challenges, including delayed development and possible ASD. Years later, the abortion still haunts “the father.” He attempts to exorcise his shame (the title = how Anaïs Nin defined it) by volunteering at an abortion clinic. Escorting patients to and from their cars, ignoring the taunts of protestors, he lives out his conviction that you can never fully know what others are going through and why they make the decisions they do.
Davies gets the tone just right in this novella, showing both sides of parenthood and voicing the things you aren’t allowed to think, or at least not admit to (starting with abortion, which would-be fathers aren’t expected to have strong feelings about either way, since their body is not involved). Soon after the writer’s son is born: “He feels about himself for love, the way he might pat his pockets for his wallet and keys. Do I love him yet? Is this love?” As the boy grows into a figure of pathos: “All the things they’ve imagined him growing up to be: A basketball player, a fireman, a chef. [vs. what he actually seems to be] Allergic, friendless, autistic.” Davies also has a gift for zinging phrases, like “the deification of babies” and “the baby-industrial complex” of Babies “R” Us. He impishly divides kidhood into a schema something like the seven ages of man, from “the Age of dinosaurs” to “the Age of screens,” and the writer’s dialogues with his wife are bitingly funny.
But what I most loved was the rumination on the role that chance plays in a life. “All the coin flips. All the what ifs. Like the litany of prompts he uses in writing class. Heads and tales.” The writer has a background in physics (as Davies himself does), so often brings up Schrödinger’s cat as a metaphor – in any situation, things might have gone either way. Now that the possibilities have narrowed to one and the path has been started, what will you do? The treatment of luck, in particular, led me to think of this as a cross between Larry’s Party by Carol Shields and What Are You Going Through by Sigrid Nunez. The style is similar to Jenny Offill’s; another similar and nearly contemporaneous release is Brood by Jackie Polzin.
I know I read The Fortunes back in 2016 but I retain virtually no memory of it. Davies’s prose, themes, and voice stood out much more for me here. I’ll try his novel The Welsh Girl, too, maybe even for book club later this year.
Favorite lines:
“this is also what the internet is for, he thinks. If online porn universalizes shame, social media universalizes judgment. Both exercises in self-gratification.”
“An older colleague told him once cats were baby substitutes. ‘They weigh the same, they sleep on you, they roll around on their backs kicking their legs in the air. They mewl.’”
For more on abortion from a male perspective: The Cider House Rules by John Irving and Ars Botanica by Tim Taranto.
October 12, 2023
Peter Ho Davies' book A Lie Someone Told You About Yourself opens "There was a chance the baby was normal. There was a chance the baby was not." Testing shows an abnormality of too many chromosomes. Davies goes on to chronicle the parents' decision of whether or not to abort the baby and their lives over the next several years.
This is the tale of their journey through the ups and downs of parenthood, and I especially appreciate that it is told through a man's lens. Davies has a light touch in his writing. For example he describes that at the end of a long day the parent in charge of bed time that night will stumble downstairs, announcing wearily, “‘And that concludes today’s parenting.’ Until the next day, and the next and the next. As if it were a curse and not a blessing. As if it really were forever.”
Hasn't every parent felt the exhaustion of seemingly never ending caretaking? When our kids were young I yearned for just 20 minutes when no one would touch me. I was excited for a trip to the grocery store ALONE. We worried over milestones, had they met them in a timely way? Would they have friends? Would they succeed academically? We bristled when family, and sometimes total strangers, gave us advice on how we could be better parents. There were days my beloved and I asked each other, "Whose idea was it to have children?"
Davies also realistically portrays the couple's marriage. He describes the pressures they experience. They bicker at times, they don't always connect, and I see the shared history that holds them together. Davies conveys their love despite, or maybe because of, their challenges and differences. These experiences felt real to me too. No marriage is smooth 100% of the time, no matter how well suited the partners. And it's easy to see how wedges can pull a couple apart.
This book reads more like a collection of chronological essays than a novel. I had to readjust my thinking while reading the first section. After settling in to the style I began to appreciate Davies crisp and compact narration. This thoughtful and ambitious novel is the tale of one family and how they have lived and loved imperfectly and to the best of their ability.
Publication 2021
This is the tale of their journey through the ups and downs of parenthood, and I especially appreciate that it is told through a man's lens. Davies has a light touch in his writing. For example he describes that at the end of a long day the parent in charge of bed time that night will stumble downstairs, announcing wearily, “‘And that concludes today’s parenting.’ Until the next day, and the next and the next. As if it were a curse and not a blessing. As if it really were forever.”
Hasn't every parent felt the exhaustion of seemingly never ending caretaking? When our kids were young I yearned for just 20 minutes when no one would touch me. I was excited for a trip to the grocery store ALONE. We worried over milestones, had they met them in a timely way? Would they have friends? Would they succeed academically? We bristled when family, and sometimes total strangers, gave us advice on how we could be better parents. There were days my beloved and I asked each other, "Whose idea was it to have children?"
Davies also realistically portrays the couple's marriage. He describes the pressures they experience. They bicker at times, they don't always connect, and I see the shared history that holds them together. Davies conveys their love despite, or maybe because of, their challenges and differences. These experiences felt real to me too. No marriage is smooth 100% of the time, no matter how well suited the partners. And it's easy to see how wedges can pull a couple apart.
This book reads more like a collection of chronological essays than a novel. I had to readjust my thinking while reading the first section. After settling in to the style I began to appreciate Davies crisp and compact narration. This thoughtful and ambitious novel is the tale of one family and how they have lived and loved imperfectly and to the best of their ability.
Publication 2021
December 30, 2021
A raw and honest look at the choices we can be faced with regarding parenthood from the father's perspective that I found truly interesting. The whole while I was listening I was fully absorbed.
Favorite quotes:
Peter Ho Davies writes of how the evidence of pregnancy is so public and people become uninhibited, providing their opinion freely on the subjects of pregnancy, childbirth and parenting. He writes, "They know one thing about you and they think it's everything."
I think most new parents are surprised by the long list of all the equipment and paraphernalia needed for taking care of an infant and I love how Davies refers to this as a puzzle to be solved by writing, "All the Tetris pieces to fit - somehow - into their home, their lives, their budget."
I think the following describes most new parents when faced with so many products and so many decisions to make on too little sleep: "The father wanders the aisles of Babies "R" Us, disheveled and stunned as a refugee from some disaster. He stares blankly at the bales of diapers, the pallets of formula, the piled-high bricks of wet wipes."
Then, there is the overwhelming feeling of responsibility for this new life: "He knows he has failed to protect the boy. The first failure of many he intuits darkly."
The social context of the following passage interested me especially, as new parents may not have a good support network, or family living close by to lend a hand, they may rely on the friendship of other couples they have only known briefly through childbirth education classes: "Their only bond that they'd all had sex around the same time. It didn't seem enough to base friendships on. But now here they were - "our village" - the mothers and fathers and babies they will measure their lives against for weeks and months and years, running into them at Mommy and Me classes, at story time, the toy store, the pediatrician's."
Life is never the same after you have a child. The way a couple relates with each other evolves with the addition of each child and further, when the child(ren) become independent and eventually move out. "The first time the boy sleeps over at a friend's they wander the house as if they have lost something. Not him, but their old selves."
I was interested to read Davies' perspective on why we buy our children pets, sometimes against our own better judgment, he writes that it is because "We love to see them love." He explains further, "Their love for pets is a promise that they'll love their own kids and buy them pets." He likens it to the 'circle of life.'
Favorite quotes:
Peter Ho Davies writes of how the evidence of pregnancy is so public and people become uninhibited, providing their opinion freely on the subjects of pregnancy, childbirth and parenting. He writes, "They know one thing about you and they think it's everything."
I think most new parents are surprised by the long list of all the equipment and paraphernalia needed for taking care of an infant and I love how Davies refers to this as a puzzle to be solved by writing, "All the Tetris pieces to fit - somehow - into their home, their lives, their budget."
I think the following describes most new parents when faced with so many products and so many decisions to make on too little sleep: "The father wanders the aisles of Babies "R" Us, disheveled and stunned as a refugee from some disaster. He stares blankly at the bales of diapers, the pallets of formula, the piled-high bricks of wet wipes."
Then, there is the overwhelming feeling of responsibility for this new life: "He knows he has failed to protect the boy. The first failure of many he intuits darkly."
The social context of the following passage interested me especially, as new parents may not have a good support network, or family living close by to lend a hand, they may rely on the friendship of other couples they have only known briefly through childbirth education classes: "Their only bond that they'd all had sex around the same time. It didn't seem enough to base friendships on. But now here they were - "our village" - the mothers and fathers and babies they will measure their lives against for weeks and months and years, running into them at Mommy and Me classes, at story time, the toy store, the pediatrician's."
Life is never the same after you have a child. The way a couple relates with each other evolves with the addition of each child and further, when the child(ren) become independent and eventually move out. "The first time the boy sleeps over at a friend's they wander the house as if they have lost something. Not him, but their old selves."
I was interested to read Davies' perspective on why we buy our children pets, sometimes against our own better judgment, he writes that it is because "We love to see them love." He explains further, "Their love for pets is a promise that they'll love their own kids and buy them pets." He likens it to the 'circle of life.'
April 11, 2021
I both loved it to pieces, and wanted more. Reading this novel was like going out to dinner with someone you've meant to get together with for a very long time, years maybe, and at the end of the meal you can well imagine this person is going to be a very great friend of yours one day. But in the meantime you just don't know enough to be sure.
April 12, 2021
Very few male authors are capable of describing the full emotional range of contemporary fatherhood for members of the educated middle classes. Not just the whole medical experience of reproduction and childbirth, which (I admit) is physically not happening directly in the bodies of sensitive new-age dads who are active participants at Lamaze classes and as birth partners. But also the wide extremes of feeling from the initial adrenaline-soaked exhilaration of meeting your newborn for the first time, to the way having a child changes the physical intimacy of a marital relationship, to the soul-destroying sleepless drudgery of diaper-changings, bottle-feedings, while maintaining an ironic distance at the absurd ridiculousness of it all.
And the relentless work of being a dad who's actually carrying his equal share of the burden of household management: packing lunches, school pickups, and weekend bouncy-castle parties, leavened by the big dumb fun of sharing one's own childhood pop culture with your own kid (usually much too early). Peter Ho Davies approaches these experiences of fatherhood with such sharp wit and warm companionability, like that other super-insightful fellow-suffering dad I wish I'd met at the playground ten years ago, but never did.
But Davies not only captures the emotional and intellectual inner life of the suburban North American ur-dad, but he also articulates feelings I think had when my child was younger, but I didn't know how to put into words, and maybe I didn't even know I was having them at the time. Maybe only Knausgaard comes close, in a few scenes early on in Volume 1 of My Struggle... Maybe A Lie Someone Told You about Yourself isn't such a self-consciously monumental autofictional achievement, because Davies isn't swinging for the fences or wrestling with Heidegger or grandiosely seeking Literary Greatness. This slim novella is much more subtle and more performatively modest, packing a hugely cathartic emotional punch.
A Lie Someone Told You about Yourself is much more than a description of a normal experience of fatherhood, if such a thing exists. There's so much chronic pain and ruminative mourning in this book, but I didn't want to lead off with that, because once I told you this was about a couple who chooses to abort a fetus with probable genetic abnormalities, and about a year later, give birth to a son who spends a short spell in the NICU and might be on the autism spectrum, you might already have fled for the exits.
The first-person narrator is a professor of creative writing in the upper Midwest, much like Davies himself, but it's never clear (not that I actually want or need to know) how much actual raw experience is in here, and how much has been processed and fictionalized (for the sake of his marriage, let's hope it's more the latter than the former). Both the narrator/Davies and his wife spend a decade working through the outcomes of making the least-bad choices they could have (or did they?), and the sheer randomness of the outcome of human chromosomes combining, while raising a son who's been diagnosed as "twice-exceptional," but never descends into annoying sitcom precociousness.
Davies handles this incredibly heavy material with such a light touch, liberally dusted with dad jokes, which initially annoyed me with their cringeworthy badness (I admit it-- I am a chronic teller of dad jokes that constantly embarrass my entire family), become meta-jokes about the whole concept of the whole possibility of dad jokes. I very much enjoyed the character of Barb, with whom the narrator volunteers as an escort at the local women's health clinic, and whose perfect-foil wit is even sharper and darker than his.
Very highly recommended, and very much worth a couple of days of your reading time.
And the relentless work of being a dad who's actually carrying his equal share of the burden of household management: packing lunches, school pickups, and weekend bouncy-castle parties, leavened by the big dumb fun of sharing one's own childhood pop culture with your own kid (usually much too early). Peter Ho Davies approaches these experiences of fatherhood with such sharp wit and warm companionability, like that other super-insightful fellow-suffering dad I wish I'd met at the playground ten years ago, but never did.
But Davies not only captures the emotional and intellectual inner life of the suburban North American ur-dad, but he also articulates feelings I think had when my child was younger, but I didn't know how to put into words, and maybe I didn't even know I was having them at the time. Maybe only Knausgaard comes close, in a few scenes early on in Volume 1 of My Struggle... Maybe A Lie Someone Told You about Yourself isn't such a self-consciously monumental autofictional achievement, because Davies isn't swinging for the fences or wrestling with Heidegger or grandiosely seeking Literary Greatness. This slim novella is much more subtle and more performatively modest, packing a hugely cathartic emotional punch.
A Lie Someone Told You about Yourself is much more than a description of a normal experience of fatherhood, if such a thing exists. There's so much chronic pain and ruminative mourning in this book, but I didn't want to lead off with that, because once I told you this was about a couple who chooses to abort a fetus with probable genetic abnormalities, and about a year later, give birth to a son who spends a short spell in the NICU and might be on the autism spectrum, you might already have fled for the exits.
The first-person narrator is a professor of creative writing in the upper Midwest, much like Davies himself, but it's never clear (not that I actually want or need to know) how much actual raw experience is in here, and how much has been processed and fictionalized (for the sake of his marriage, let's hope it's more the latter than the former). Both the narrator/Davies and his wife spend a decade working through the outcomes of making the least-bad choices they could have (or did they?), and the sheer randomness of the outcome of human chromosomes combining, while raising a son who's been diagnosed as "twice-exceptional," but never descends into annoying sitcom precociousness.
Davies handles this incredibly heavy material with such a light touch, liberally dusted with dad jokes, which initially annoyed me with their cringeworthy badness (I admit it-- I am a chronic teller of dad jokes that constantly embarrass my entire family), become meta-jokes about the whole concept of the whole possibility of dad jokes. I very much enjoyed the character of Barb, with whom the narrator volunteers as an escort at the local women's health clinic, and whose perfect-foil wit is even sharper and darker than his.
Very highly recommended, and very much worth a couple of days of your reading time.
January 18, 2021
A Lie Someone Told You About Yourself is a moving and unflinchingly honest account of fatherhood, one man’s struggle to come to terms with abortion and the trials and tribulations of later bearing a son and watching him grow into a man and bringing with it another sense of loss as he begins to make his own way in the world. It begins with an unnamed couple being informed of the results of pre-natal tests on the fetus. They are told that there is a high probability that their unborn child will be born with a rare genetic condition. Some of the cells in the test were normal. Some of the cells had too many chromosomes. The medical term was mosaicism. So, after their doctor gives them a list of potential birth defects, they decide to abort the baby but the decision weighs heavy on both of their hearts and shame creeps into their thoughts refusing to allow them to try and heal from such a difficult ordeal. Later, she gets pregnant once more and everything is seemingly smooth sailing until the birth when the baby turns blue on the delivery table and is rushed to intensive care. He is well enough to be discharged after four days and the threesome settle into a routine. Sleep-deprived, panicked and paranoid, the parents worry when he cries, sleeps and does all of the things a healthy baby should do.
As he develops they notice he is different to everyone else and those around him ask if he may be autistic. But the parents fear getting him tested as it brings back memories of the abortion. This is a refreshingly original novella that focuses on fatherhood from the fathers third-person perspective, which is a point of view we rarely see explored. Most aptly categorised as autobiographical fiction, or autofiction, I thought leaving the characters unnamed was an intelligent method of getting the reader to focus on the subject matter and emotions involved rather than the people. It is an acutely perceptive exploration of the almost always neglected joys and hardships leading up to fatherhood straight from the horse's mouth so we understand that fathers too are just as emotionally invested in their child's welfare as the mother even though this isn't usually how it is portrayed. It's superbly written, highly relatable, whether you're a parent or not, and deeply moving; Ho Davies has the amazing ability of making you feel every word and many of the sentences linger in the mind. A captivating, intimate and ultimately heartbreaking prose poem, this is a candid, engaging and emotionally resonant take on the highs and lows, trials and tribulations of parenthood. Highly recommended.
As he develops they notice he is different to everyone else and those around him ask if he may be autistic. But the parents fear getting him tested as it brings back memories of the abortion. This is a refreshingly original novella that focuses on fatherhood from the fathers third-person perspective, which is a point of view we rarely see explored. Most aptly categorised as autobiographical fiction, or autofiction, I thought leaving the characters unnamed was an intelligent method of getting the reader to focus on the subject matter and emotions involved rather than the people. It is an acutely perceptive exploration of the almost always neglected joys and hardships leading up to fatherhood straight from the horse's mouth so we understand that fathers too are just as emotionally invested in their child's welfare as the mother even though this isn't usually how it is portrayed. It's superbly written, highly relatable, whether you're a parent or not, and deeply moving; Ho Davies has the amazing ability of making you feel every word and many of the sentences linger in the mind. A captivating, intimate and ultimately heartbreaking prose poem, this is a candid, engaging and emotionally resonant take on the highs and lows, trials and tribulations of parenthood. Highly recommended.
November 13, 2021
Unfinished. While there were some nice insights into the life of a parent the overall commentary came across as an almost constant whine. If I analysed the world to this degree I'd be terrified of getting out of bed in the morning, never mind having a child.
March 4, 2021
Completely blind read —
I downloaded this book randomly based on a review I scrolled by on GR. I liked the title and had no idea what the book was about.
Interestingly enough — although it's not some subject matter that I'm typically interested in, it's a unique novel about parenthood from the view of a new father.
Based on the title, I thought it'd be a cerebral read about something else.
It was a very readable story. The main character is a writer, a loving, incredibly pensive, conflicted yet forward-thinking husband & father. He's also kinda resentful. He struggles with the abortion he and his wife had to have before their son was eventually born, due to their fetus being abnormal.
The continuous internal inquiry of the father is tremendously vulnerable and very refreshing to read. We typically hear a lot of these stories from the perspective of the mother, detailing their stresses, their experience of motherhood, post-partum depression, etc. This is a great alternative and was an okay blind-read.
I downloaded this book randomly based on a review I scrolled by on GR. I liked the title and had no idea what the book was about.
Interestingly enough — although it's not some subject matter that I'm typically interested in, it's a unique novel about parenthood from the view of a new father.
Based on the title, I thought it'd be a cerebral read about something else.
It was a very readable story. The main character is a writer, a loving, incredibly pensive, conflicted yet forward-thinking husband & father. He's also kinda resentful. He struggles with the abortion he and his wife had to have before their son was eventually born, due to their fetus being abnormal.
The continuous internal inquiry of the father is tremendously vulnerable and very refreshing to read. We typically hear a lot of these stories from the perspective of the mother, detailing their stresses, their experience of motherhood, post-partum depression, etc. This is a great alternative and was an okay blind-read.
March 6, 2021
"One of the gifts of fiction, he tells students, is the cover it provides. A story can be 1% true and 99% made up, or 99% true and 1% made up, and the reader won’t know the difference, the writer doesn’t have to declare. It means he can tell the truth and take the Fifth simultaneously.”
I don’t know how much of A Lie Someone Told You About Yourself is true. But I’m assuming that much of it is, indeed, the author’s own experience. The fact that he can mine it to write this work of autofiction is courageous.
The characters—referred to as the father and the mother—find out that the baby she is carrying likely has a rare condition called mosaicism—too many chromosomes in some of its cells. The list of what the baby may be born with is four pages long. Single-spaced. There is a small chance that the baby might, in fact, be born normal but the odds are high that she won’t be. The couple decide to have what is referred to as a “virtuous abortion.”
Those readers who have rigid beliefs about abortion—that it is never right or never wrong—may not be the ideal readers for this book although they SHOULD be. There are many nuances here, including the ongoing feelings of shame combined with the belief they did what they had to do. In any event, they decide to try for another baby and this time, the mother carries their son full term.
The mother and father then enter the purgatory of parenthood—the initial loss of self, the fears of witnessing that child, who may or may not be on the spectrum grow, the efforts of keeping love alive. Interspersed with dark comedy—both parents are writers and their repertoire is riveting—Peter Ho Davies never falters in his soul-baring depiction of modern marriage and parenthood.
It’s all depicted here—the shame and guilt, the rawness and fury, the aching love and the absurdities. At one point he asks the mother, “Do you mind my writing about it?” Her answer: “It’s your version. Your side. I didn’t take it as the whole story.” She also ponders what their son will think of it in the ridiculously distant future.
I, too, wonder. Will he be comfortable with the exposure and raw intimacy of the book? Or will he recognize the fierce and passionate love for him that informs just about every page of this candid and authentic work? I suspect the latter.
The last pages were rushed as if the author were trying to sum up his thoughts way too quickly. That is the only flaw in a novel that I found to be brave and triumphant. 4.5 stars.
I don’t know how much of A Lie Someone Told You About Yourself is true. But I’m assuming that much of it is, indeed, the author’s own experience. The fact that he can mine it to write this work of autofiction is courageous.
The characters—referred to as the father and the mother—find out that the baby she is carrying likely has a rare condition called mosaicism—too many chromosomes in some of its cells. The list of what the baby may be born with is four pages long. Single-spaced. There is a small chance that the baby might, in fact, be born normal but the odds are high that she won’t be. The couple decide to have what is referred to as a “virtuous abortion.”
Those readers who have rigid beliefs about abortion—that it is never right or never wrong—may not be the ideal readers for this book although they SHOULD be. There are many nuances here, including the ongoing feelings of shame combined with the belief they did what they had to do. In any event, they decide to try for another baby and this time, the mother carries their son full term.
The mother and father then enter the purgatory of parenthood—the initial loss of self, the fears of witnessing that child, who may or may not be on the spectrum grow, the efforts of keeping love alive. Interspersed with dark comedy—both parents are writers and their repertoire is riveting—Peter Ho Davies never falters in his soul-baring depiction of modern marriage and parenthood.
It’s all depicted here—the shame and guilt, the rawness and fury, the aching love and the absurdities. At one point he asks the mother, “Do you mind my writing about it?” Her answer: “It’s your version. Your side. I didn’t take it as the whole story.” She also ponders what their son will think of it in the ridiculously distant future.
I, too, wonder. Will he be comfortable with the exposure and raw intimacy of the book? Or will he recognize the fierce and passionate love for him that informs just about every page of this candid and authentic work? I suspect the latter.
The last pages were rushed as if the author were trying to sum up his thoughts way too quickly. That is the only flaw in a novel that I found to be brave and triumphant. 4.5 stars.
October 30, 2020
3.5 rounded down
A poetic story about parenthood told in the context of a couple weighing up whether to have a "virtuous abortion". I've read my fair share of books on motherhood, but those on fatherhood are more difficult to come by. Whilst not a parent myself I found this to be an honest and candid insight into its joys and challenges, albeit a relatively plotless and sometimes meandering meditation on the topic. This is my first Ho Davies novel, but I found the writing to be impressive and will be reading more of his work.
Thank you Netgalley and Houghton Mifflin Harcourt for the advance copy, which was provided in exchange for an honest review.
A poetic story about parenthood told in the context of a couple weighing up whether to have a "virtuous abortion". I've read my fair share of books on motherhood, but those on fatherhood are more difficult to come by. Whilst not a parent myself I found this to be an honest and candid insight into its joys and challenges, albeit a relatively plotless and sometimes meandering meditation on the topic. This is my first Ho Davies novel, but I found the writing to be impressive and will be reading more of his work.
Thank you Netgalley and Houghton Mifflin Harcourt for the advance copy, which was provided in exchange for an honest review.
October 31, 2020
Beautiful, honest and sensitively written narrative about: abortion because of awful test results, worries about whether your child is really okay once you do have a child, parenthood, marriage and love. Very impressive read.
Thank you Houghton Mifflin Harcourt and Edelweiss for the ARC.
Thank you Houghton Mifflin Harcourt and Edelweiss for the ARC.
February 5, 2021
This is a novel about procreation, including abortion, told from the unique perspective of a man. When the wife receives bad test results about her pregnancy indicating something is wrong the child, the couple makes a difficult decision to have an abortion of the female fetus. In a bit of irony, she gets pregnant again and all her tests are fine. But just because prenatal tests provide positive results, that doesn’t mean your child won’t have difficulties. < spoiler>Their next child has autism and is greatly underdeveloped physically.
Much of the book deals with the father’s sense of shame for the abortion. “Shame is the lie someone told you about yourself,” according to Anaïs Nin (herself the author of several abortions). But what if it’s not a lie? And what if the someone is you?” He also talks repeatedly about “killing” his first child which I found very jarring and disconcerting. He wrestles with whether his son should eventually know he almost had a sister.
I don’t think the author was saying the husband was pro-life. After all, he along with his wife made the abortion decision. But he is saying having an abortion has a strong impact on the husband even many years later. In fact, the son’s life seems to augment the husband’s shame.
This novel was interesting because it came from the man’s point of view, but ultimately I didn’t engage with it because the man’s point of view is not really relevant IMHO. It’s a woman’s body. It’s kind of interesting that some men would feel shame, but the book comes too close to the politically-charged question of whether one is pro-choice or anti-abortion. Davies never hints at the wife’s point of view.
Much of the book deals with the father’s sense of shame for the abortion. “Shame is the lie someone told you about yourself,” according to Anaïs Nin (herself the author of several abortions). But what if it’s not a lie? And what if the someone is you?” He also talks repeatedly about “killing” his first child which I found very jarring and disconcerting. He wrestles with whether his son should eventually know he almost had a sister.
I don’t think the author was saying the husband was pro-life. After all, he along with his wife made the abortion decision. But he is saying having an abortion has a strong impact on the husband even many years later. In fact, the son’s life seems to augment the husband’s shame.
This novel was interesting because it came from the man’s point of view, but ultimately I didn’t engage with it because the man’s point of view is not really relevant IMHO. It’s a woman’s body. It’s kind of interesting that some men would feel shame, but the book comes too close to the politically-charged question of whether one is pro-choice or anti-abortion. Davies never hints at the wife’s point of view.
January 18, 2021
Yeah, there are the conventions of autofiction here -- the protagonist is a writer, and there is a good deal of reflection on writing and the teaching of writing. All of which fits Ho Davies profile. But where that convention has bothered me in other books, it does not here. Not at all. I think that is because of the subject matter -- the choice to not have a child with uncertain genetic markers, and then the choice to have one, who ends up being difficult, at least in early childhood. These are important questions and ones many of us have confronted. Ho Davies approaches them with undisguised emotion, but also sometimes with real humor. It has been a long time since I've read a novel that has made me both laugh and cry. This one did.
It's a short-ish novel an a quick read. There is a long moment in the middle about abortion, guilt, and activism. That is the one point where things got a little slow for me -- but worked fine in the end for the discussion of guilt and shame and what we allow those emotions to do to us.
And it is so refreshing to have a novel that centers on parenting and is told from the point of view of the father. There must be other contemporary novels that have this intimate portrait of the emotions and uncertainties so many of us have shared, but I can't think of one right now.
For a smart novel dealing with difficult subject matter, it is a very quick read.
It's a short-ish novel an a quick read. There is a long moment in the middle about abortion, guilt, and activism. That is the one point where things got a little slow for me -- but worked fine in the end for the discussion of guilt and shame and what we allow those emotions to do to us.
And it is so refreshing to have a novel that centers on parenting and is told from the point of view of the father. There must be other contemporary novels that have this intimate portrait of the emotions and uncertainties so many of us have shared, but I can't think of one right now.
For a smart novel dealing with difficult subject matter, it is a very quick read.
May 11, 2020
Thank you to the publisher for providing me with an eARC of this novel via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
This novel is poetry in prose. It centres around a couple who are forced to choose whether to have a "virtuous abortion" or not based on the results of a fetal genetic test. It is one of the most honest and unique representations of the internal struggles of abortion that I have seen. I felt connected to the tumult of conflicting emotions the protagonist was whirling through as he stumbled along in almost-and-then-actual fatherhood. It was raw and real. I do not think that Ho Davies' style is for everyone, but it definitely worked for me. Except for the ending...that one left me feeling unsatisfied.
This novel is poetry in prose. It centres around a couple who are forced to choose whether to have a "virtuous abortion" or not based on the results of a fetal genetic test. It is one of the most honest and unique representations of the internal struggles of abortion that I have seen. I felt connected to the tumult of conflicting emotions the protagonist was whirling through as he stumbled along in almost-and-then-actual fatherhood. It was raw and real. I do not think that Ho Davies' style is for everyone, but it definitely worked for me. Except for the ending...that one left me feeling unsatisfied.
March 7, 2021
I finished this book, hoping against hope that the author might show some personal growth and stop whining. Yes, I appreciated a book about fatherhood by a man, but NO, I did not like that he kept dwelling on shame and regret about the abortion. Grief, yes, but all that shame! I think he should have had a thank you to Planned Parenthood in the Acknowledgments for making it possible for him and his wife to even have a legal abortion. I do not appreciate -- in the days we live in now when a woman's right to her own body is questioned and vilified -- that he actually writes, "How you tell him you killed his sister." (p 211) Is he so ungrateful for his "virtuous abortion" that he has to keep talking like that, adding fuel to the fires that make it harder for other women?
May 7, 2021
This little novel provides a lot to think about concerning marriage, fatherhood, the joys and stings of parenting, and weighty social issues. A very honest book, sometimes brutally/uncomfortably honest.
March 16, 2021
A memoir-like novel (or perhaps a novel-like memoir) that is a deeply affecting meditation on fatherhood, love, loss, regret, and shame. The narrator could perhaps lighten up just a wee bit...one hopes parenthood, even with all its challenges (in this particular case and in general), offers more opportunities for joy and laughter than are described here.
January 17, 2021
This book was really good, almost a 5 star book, but if only it was longer! The author accomplished a lot in his minimalistic way, but I was ready for a deeper dive into the surrounding characters. The turn of phrase, one-liners that just captured the moment or sentiment perfectly...
Also great to read a book about fatherhood: lots of books about fathers out there, but not a ton about this specific topic.
Also great to read a book about fatherhood: lots of books about fathers out there, but not a ton about this specific topic.
March 11, 2021
This is a memoir about a couple's feelings of deep shame after choosing to terminate a pregnancy because the child had a chromosomal abnormality. And then the couple gets pregnant again and has a healthy child who later turns out to be on the spectrum.
That's a lot to deal with and a lot to grieve. Most of this book is really the author resisting the grief, because his shame is so deep. And it's heartbreaking, but it's also frustrating, because I felt like the author doesn't ever really explore where that shame comes from.
I appreciated how the author reveals how hard it is to take care of a newborn and how hard it is to realize that your child is different and has special needs. On the other hand, though, I felt like the author had no awareness of other griefs around having children such as infertility. He states at one point that the childbirth class was awkward because the only reason all those people are in a room together is "because they had sex." I guess I could call out that privilege, but I'm not a millenial. Really, it's just irritating, because it's a biased view and excludes those who have children in ways other than having sex.
In the end, I felt like this memoir was wrestling with the dismantling of the magical thinking around having kids which is so rampant in all societies and is not helped at all by narcissistic celebrities posing like fertility goddesses in Instagram spreads. And I liked that (the knocking down of all of the magical thinking), but I wish the author had attacked it more directly. Instead, his shame muddled what could have been an excellent memoir about raising a child with autism and letting go of all of the magical thinking around parenthood.
That's a lot to deal with and a lot to grieve. Most of this book is really the author resisting the grief, because his shame is so deep. And it's heartbreaking, but it's also frustrating, because I felt like the author doesn't ever really explore where that shame comes from.
I appreciated how the author reveals how hard it is to take care of a newborn and how hard it is to realize that your child is different and has special needs. On the other hand, though, I felt like the author had no awareness of other griefs around having children such as infertility. He states at one point that the childbirth class was awkward because the only reason all those people are in a room together is "because they had sex." I guess I could call out that privilege, but I'm not a millenial. Really, it's just irritating, because it's a biased view and excludes those who have children in ways other than having sex.
In the end, I felt like this memoir was wrestling with the dismantling of the magical thinking around having kids which is so rampant in all societies and is not helped at all by narcissistic celebrities posing like fertility goddesses in Instagram spreads. And I liked that (the knocking down of all of the magical thinking), but I wish the author had attacked it more directly. Instead, his shame muddled what could have been an excellent memoir about raising a child with autism and letting go of all of the magical thinking around parenthood.
October 25, 2020
A Life Someone Told You About Yourself is a book about so many things. It's certainly literary, but it also read quite political to me as well. It read as if the author had a political point of view he wanted to explore in depth and did so through his characters. At times, it felt as though he was espousing that political view through strategically placed characters in the story, using them as mouthpieces, rather than telling a story about characters who experienced that issue themselves.. While the story was very powerful and well-crafted with razor sharp prose, it also felt manipulative.
The plot line that I enjoyed the most was not the focus on abortion, but rather the developmental issues with one of the children. The author wrote with great clarity and accuracy about what parents feel, think and experience in that situation. That plot threat was compelling to me and far more nuanced. The abortion plot thread was understandably difficult to read, but mostly difficult because it felt forced. I would have preferred more focus on the grey areas and complexities of what is certainly a complex issue fraught with differing opinions.
The book also had some very crass, sexually graphic language that felt unnecessary and out of place in what was otherwise carefully craft prose.
The plot line that I enjoyed the most was not the focus on abortion, but rather the developmental issues with one of the children. The author wrote with great clarity and accuracy about what parents feel, think and experience in that situation. That plot threat was compelling to me and far more nuanced. The abortion plot thread was understandably difficult to read, but mostly difficult because it felt forced. I would have preferred more focus on the grey areas and complexities of what is certainly a complex issue fraught with differing opinions.
The book also had some very crass, sexually graphic language that felt unnecessary and out of place in what was otherwise carefully craft prose.
February 13, 2021
A lie someone told you about yourself is basically a domestic life written from a Male's POV. It is a wholesome prose, about domestic life one undergoes as a male over his lifetime. Even though the writer spends a lot of time writing about a husband's opinion and feelings when A couple goes through abortion, How they were not reckless, or poverty stricken, It was not a chance they took, the foetus was more of a decision they had made, To make a baby out of themselves.
It is always wanted that the husband should stay strong after Abortion, but that is all The prejudice we have in my opinion. When a couple decides to have a baby, each of them contributes to it, each of them have their own versions of dreams they did see about the baby's future and hence when the dreams are shattered after a Virtuous abortion, both of them should grief, regret and feel emptiness, not just one of them. It is the societal conviction we impose upon ourselves in the name of shame, The protestor's mourn and scream, not ours.
Writer has captured all the aspects, one that of morality, Mortality, sex.
Shame is the only lie someone told you about yourself! Here, that someone might just be you, believing in those protestor's thoughts and ideas and imagination about zygote or foetus.
In a century where abortion is such a "Everyone's business" , we need a book which tells that Zygote or foetus is not a baby, Not a child, Not some cells,In true sense it is not more than just zygote and foetus. It is a potential child, a potential chance that it might be normal. The parents who are doing it are already in grief and regret and hence since it is none of your business you should not give them more sorrow for it !
And that is why we should not make Those ultrasounds, heartbeat or tiny black and white images more than what they really are. They are foetus and zygote, thats what they are. Nothing more (Not a CHILD) and nothing less (Not some random cells).
Peter Has not just portrayed an ideal man, One reads everyday, who is full of self respect, Sure about decisions, Morally functioning and wealthy. Peter has written about day to day man, a family man, who wanted to have an affair not because he stopped loving his wife,or kid or marriage, But because he is questioning his Manhood, he craves his freedom and want to escape this "Parenting" stage of his life which includes no sleep and potty training.
In my opinion,parents are allowed to be selfish. You can learn to hate parenting. It is very tough,Life altering. This is what I guess the writer tries to conveys, Considering that The father in the book doesn't feel anything after his boy is born, He wanted sex over Child,In the initial stage, He wanted to Give a baby for his wife's sake but after couple of years, He could have died for his son, happily! He cannot imagine a life without his boy, and hence this feeling of hating diapers, hatred towards Changes which a kid brings to your life should be normal.
I am in no form or way supporting the Whole escape my life formula to affair and EMA, or infedility, All I am saying is, This is how male brain functions, and such thoughts are part of one's life whether a woman likes it or not !
He has aspiration for his kid,Doubts whether his boy was a by product of their abortion, He has confusions,fears about his boy's health and insecurities whether he is the best version of a father ! If a father is what he should call himself during "their" first pregnancy, (If their is even a right word considering,The mother is who carries the ward in the womb, is he just for the ride, is he really involved and a lot of more thoughts one must and should have)
Absolutely, beautiful. A book we need in our lives, because we need not know a lot about vietnam war, Nazis, American economy, but what we really need to know are the people we will see everyday, The gender who is very different from yours, One with flaws and thoughts. One domestic story from a father's POV, one wholesome experience of fatherhood, you might never have.
It is always wanted that the husband should stay strong after Abortion, but that is all The prejudice we have in my opinion. When a couple decides to have a baby, each of them contributes to it, each of them have their own versions of dreams they did see about the baby's future and hence when the dreams are shattered after a Virtuous abortion, both of them should grief, regret and feel emptiness, not just one of them. It is the societal conviction we impose upon ourselves in the name of shame, The protestor's mourn and scream, not ours.
Writer has captured all the aspects, one that of morality, Mortality, sex.
Shame is the only lie someone told you about yourself! Here, that someone might just be you, believing in those protestor's thoughts and ideas and imagination about zygote or foetus.
In a century where abortion is such a "Everyone's business" , we need a book which tells that Zygote or foetus is not a baby, Not a child, Not some cells,In true sense it is not more than just zygote and foetus. It is a potential child, a potential chance that it might be normal. The parents who are doing it are already in grief and regret and hence since it is none of your business you should not give them more sorrow for it !
And that is why we should not make Those ultrasounds, heartbeat or tiny black and white images more than what they really are. They are foetus and zygote, thats what they are. Nothing more (Not a CHILD) and nothing less (Not some random cells).
Peter Has not just portrayed an ideal man, One reads everyday, who is full of self respect, Sure about decisions, Morally functioning and wealthy. Peter has written about day to day man, a family man, who wanted to have an affair not because he stopped loving his wife,or kid or marriage, But because he is questioning his Manhood, he craves his freedom and want to escape this "Parenting" stage of his life which includes no sleep and potty training.
In my opinion,parents are allowed to be selfish. You can learn to hate parenting. It is very tough,Life altering. This is what I guess the writer tries to conveys, Considering that The father in the book doesn't feel anything after his boy is born, He wanted sex over Child,In the initial stage, He wanted to Give a baby for his wife's sake but after couple of years, He could have died for his son, happily! He cannot imagine a life without his boy, and hence this feeling of hating diapers, hatred towards Changes which a kid brings to your life should be normal.
I am in no form or way supporting the Whole escape my life formula to affair and EMA, or infedility, All I am saying is, This is how male brain functions, and such thoughts are part of one's life whether a woman likes it or not !
He has aspiration for his kid,Doubts whether his boy was a by product of their abortion, He has confusions,fears about his boy's health and insecurities whether he is the best version of a father ! If a father is what he should call himself during "their" first pregnancy, (If their is even a right word considering,The mother is who carries the ward in the womb, is he just for the ride, is he really involved and a lot of more thoughts one must and should have)
Absolutely, beautiful. A book we need in our lives, because we need not know a lot about vietnam war, Nazis, American economy, but what we really need to know are the people we will see everyday, The gender who is very different from yours, One with flaws and thoughts. One domestic story from a father's POV, one wholesome experience of fatherhood, you might never have.
March 5, 2023
This is a book about abortion and shame and the way human nature has us call things by other names in order to deal with our shame and guilt and grief. The characters in this book are not named, which I think makes it more relatable. The mother and father, as they are referred to, get an in utero diagnosis and the odds are very much against their baby. They decide to terminate and try again. Their next pregnancy brings them a healthy baby who is referred to as the boy and who is diagnosed as being twice exceptional. As the parents navigate raising him, they also struggle to reckon with the sibling that almost was- the father by being a clinic escort and the mother by going to therapy. I think that Davies handled such a bomb of a topic well throughout this story of parenthood and redemption.
December 7, 2024
Copying and pasting a quote from an interview with the author b/c it captures the book well - “This book is a condensation of those intensities [of the parenting experience]. It’s a pretty short book. There’s a kind of roller coaster, which I do think is representative of the parenting experience. It swings from dismay and despair to almost hysterical laughter. It’s easier to get a sort of laugh-out-loud moment in a book like this because of the grimness, the darkness, the challenges that precede some of those moments.”
January 5, 2022
Really incredible novel :) Beautiful commentary on parenting that was neither overly sappy nor cynical, which was extremely refreshing. Also told from a male perspective, which I normally don’t read because they typically all turn out to be raging misogynists, but this book avoided that and instead gave a genuinely interesting and insightful look into the trials and tribulations of fatherhood. Made me laugh and made me cry, so I can’t really ask for anything else! Would highly, highly, highly recommend to anyone.
January 24, 2021
Funny and heartfelt, I loved the bon mots, the characters of mother, father and son. It was a joy to read an intimate family portrait, with all the paradoxes of parenthood, joy, worry, frustration and forgiveness, from a father's point-of-view.
February 18, 2021
This is absolutely gorgeous writing, and a beautiful glimpse into one version of fatherhood, fiction that feels so intimate it reads like memoir. (I get that this is the point.) CW for abortion and pregnancy loss and ASD’s
November 27, 2021
Really exquisite and brave reflection. A review of the book used the word “astute” to describe Davies and I could not agree more.
April 6, 2021
A book, written by a man, about abortion, is not something I thought I would love, but this is beautiful and honest and felt very, very true.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 553 reviews