The Motherload: Episodes from the Brink of Motherhood

(Hardback)

Publishing Details

Classifications

Physical Properties

Description

NATIONAL BESTSELLER
An unflinching motherhood memoir that dares to ask what happens when what to expect when youre expecting turns out to be months of rage, anguish, brain fog, and a total surrender of sex, career, and identity.

A long overdue reality check. Oprah Daily
Honest, unapologetic, and brutally funny. Stephanie Danler, New York Times bestselling author of Sweetbitter
A Most Anticipated Book of 2025 by Oprah Daily, Town & Country, and Brit + Co

The kid was objectively a tiny worm, even worse, a worm with my nose. Welcome to Sarah Hoovers candid and propulsive take on motherhood where she turns the ecstatic narrative women have been fedone of immediate connection to your child followed by a joyful path of maternal discoveryon its head.

Like most of us, Sarah Hoover grew up imagining a certain life for herself, and when she moved from Indiana to New York City to study art history, the life shed imagined began falling into place. She got her degree in art history, landed a job in a gallery, made friends, and met interesting artists, one of whom became her husband. But when Hoover got pregnant, everything in her life began to unravel.

She felt like an imposter in her own body. She grew distant from her friends and husband. Anxiety, fear, guilt, and shame threatened to swallow her. She also experienced trauma at the hands of one of her doctorsa stark trigger. And when her son was born, there was no joy.

Her despair was persistent, even with help, therapy, and pills. Grieving a lost identity and angry at the world around her, she found herself despising her baby, her husband, and herself. She was afraid it might not end. With the help of a doctors diagnosis, Hoover began to understand the cluster of symptoms that informed her experienceshe was drowning in postpartum depressionand that she wasnt a bad mother or a failed woman.

At its core, The Motherload is about learning to forgive yourself. Its a rejection of the cultural idea of the mother as a perfect being. And its an honest, propulsive, and often funny take on the vicissitudes of marriage, life, and parentinga motherhood memoir unlike any other.

Reviews

"[A] page-turning look at the realities of motherhood and postpartum depression."Candace Bushnell, author of Sex and the City

Hoovers willingness to get real about the unexpected hard parts of new motherhood is a welcome moment of truth in a culture oversaturated with sunny platitudes about childbearing.W Magazine

Hoovers writing is chatty and intimate, but its her compulsive honesty that makes the book hard to put downUnsparing there is something exhilarating about a woman who isnt afraid of looking like a bad mom.The Cut
Unfiltered, honest, and amusing will appeal to many. Vogue
With blistering honesty, Hoover lays bare her own extremely messy journey to motherhood and through post-partum depression A long overdue reality check. Oprah Daily
Open, vulnerable, and thoughtful essential reading for anyone who's felt failed by the parental canon. Town & Country
The Motherloadis for all the women who wish someone had told them the truth about motherhood. Honest, unapologetic, and brutally funnyits about developing the strength to care for yourself and, thereby, learning to care for another. Stephanie Danler,New York Timesbestselling author ofSweetbitter
A stunning memoir about the turbulent yet clarifying initiation into motherhood, and about learning who you are on the other side, The Motherload reads like a no-holds-barred conversation with your funniest best friend. Sarah Hoover has a voice Id follow anywhere. I kept thinking, Wow, I want everyone to read this wholly vital book about marriage, intimacy, identity, family, art and creativity, and, yes, our relationships with our own mothers. A completely absorbing and addicting ride. Chelsea Bieker, author of Madwoman and Godshot
Finally, a funny, smart, and unapologetic treatise on the gap between motherhoods promises and its realities, Sarah Hoover takes readers on a journey marked by hard questions and truths too often buried by cultural narratives that stilldespite so many womens experiences to the contraryframe motherhood as the epitome of womanhood itself. The Motherload is a classic: hilarious, strikingly honest, and utterly unputdownable. Allie Rowbottom, author of Jell-O Girls and Aesthetica
A poignant and grimly funny antidote to the saccharine mythology of motherhood and a universal story of the female fight for autonomy in a world dead set on denying it. With page-turning urgency, Hoover takes readers through a long, dark tunnel that ultimately opens onto the messy truth and painful beauty of love. Molly Roden Winter, author of More: A Memoir of Open Marriage
I devoured The Motherload in one sitting. Hoover writes with thrilling urgency, drawing readers into the most complex and least discussed aspects of love and marriage. But this books most powerful gift is its frank, raw, and nearly inadvisable level of honesty around the experience of having a child. Hoovers unvarnished candor about the darkest, most challenging aspects of motherhood ultimately illuminates its profound and transformative power. Chlo Cooper Jones, author of Easy Beauty
Fiercely candid [and] admirably frank.Publisher's Weekly

Author Bio

Sarah Hoover holds a masters degree in cultural theory from Columbia and a BA in art history from NYU. Her writing has been featured inThe Wall Street Journal,Harpers Bazaar,Psychology Today,Mother Tongue,The Strategist, andVogue.The Motherloadis her first book.