Nine Months: A Novel

(Paperback)

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Description

Fierce, gripping and bold, Nine Months is a lacerating response to the all-too-familiar culture of 'Mummy Blogs', helicopter parents and 'parental correctness'. The plot centres around a young Brooklyn mother who finds herself unexpectedly pregnant - for the third time. Throwing caution and responsibility to the wind, she abandons her husband and kids and takes off on a wild cross-country road trip. A punchy and daring page-turner, Nine Months is sure to generate attention and possibly even controversy among young mothers and parenting bloggers.

Reviews

Praise for Nine Months

"Dark, sharp, and hilarious . . . (many) mothers escape fantasy."
New York Magazine

"Deliciously, dangerously rogue."
Marcy Dermansky, author of Bad Marie

"A raw, darkly funny, at times appalling page-turner . . . Mommy lit lovers will be horrified, but Bomers debut novel will resonate with fans of quirky, character-driven fiction in the vein of Richard Russo, John Updike, and Tiffany Baker.
Library Journal

Phenomenal comedic pace.
The Atlantic

This novel may make you feel uncomfortable at times, but it will also make you laugh and think about the difficult task of parenting and the choices we make.
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

This is a brave and provocative book about the insidious power of PC. Thats Parental Correctness not Political Correctness . . . [Bomers] wounding analysis of herself and the vicious new mummy tribes she introduces us to make this book an instant classic.
The Guardian

This is the road trip novel Ive always wanted to read . . . Sonias observations are priceless . . . After reading this powerful, entertaining novel, and Bomers excellent collection of stories, Im convinced. Anything she writes, I want it.
PANK

"Bomers feisty prose style and fluid storytelling are very, very good. They have the marks of truth: pith and passion."
The Brooklyn Rail

"Paul Bomers Nine Months is a daring look at motherhood, exploring the thoughts most women keep secret . . . A page-turner that will tie your stomach in knots and stir up one hell of a debate."
Susan Henderson, Up From the Blue

"Realistic, darkly funny, and thoroughly engaging . . . a needed flipside to books and mommy blogs that depict motherhood as solely a state of bliss and whimsy.
BUST Magazine

Bomer could have titled this work What to REALLY Expect When Youre Expecting as there is more raw, honest truth in this novel than any parenting book Ive ever read.
Jessica Anya Blau, author of Drinking Closer to Home

Paula Bomer has written a dark, honest and powerful novel in Nine Months, one that constantly surprises the reader as the layers of emotion are peeled off, one after another, revealing the depth and need of the human experience."
The Nervous Breakdown

"Nine Months is the best book I have read about the secret fears and sinister underbelly of becoming a parent, a satire which should be viewed not only as a stellar novel, but as a challenge to a literary scene mired in laziness, backslapping and lousy cliches."
Tony ONeill, author of Sick City

Bomer takes [Mommy Culture] head-on, in blunt, brave writing . . . articulate, searing, and blastingly funny on pregnancy and childbirth . . . not for the fainthearted, they would make excellent reading in high school sex education courses.
PopMatters

"Confronting, seditious and original."
Bookd Out

Praise for Bomer's collection Baby & Other Stories

"Reading Baby & Other Stories is like being attacked by a rabid dogand feeling grateful for it. This is some of the rawest and most urgent writing I can remember encountering."

Jonathan Franzen, author of The Corrections

"Dysfunctional doesn't begin to describe the marriages in this brilliant, brutally raw debut collection."
O Magazine

"In 10 raw and angry stories, Bomer flays the idea of happy little families.... This lacerating take on marriage and motherhood is not one to share with the Mommy and Me group."
Publishers Weekly (starred review)

"If Bomer's harsh portrayal of modern parenting and marriage were water, it would be transparent, unflecked, jagged ice.... She lands firmly between Mary Gaitskill's articulate, unflinching anhedonia and Kathy Acker.... Amy Hempel with a twist of Grace Paley. Baby is punk rock for the roundly domesticated."
Bookforum

"Words like 'tough' and 'honest' don't quite do justice to the fiction of Paula Bomer. The real housewives of Bomerworld break themselves and break your heart and yet never completely lose their soulful dignity."
Sam Lipsyte, author of The Ask

Author Bio

Paula Bomer is the author of the novels Tante Eva and Nine Months and the story collections Inside Madeleine and Baby and Other Stories, as well as the essay collection Mystery and Mortality. Herwork has appeared in numerous journals and magazines, including New York Magazine, LA Review of Books, BOMB, Fiction, and The Mississippi Review.