Mother Animal

(Paperback)

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When Helen Jukes falls pregnant, she does what anyone else would do, searching for information to help make sense of the changes underway inside her. But as the months pass and her body becomes increasingly strange, the pregnancy guides seem insufficient; even the advice of her friends, passionate proponents of one birthing approach or another, feels oppressive.

So she widens her frame of reference, looking beyond humans to ask what motherhood looks like in other species. Here begins a queerer, wilder process of enquiry one in which spiders, polar bears, bonobos and burying beetles (among others) begin to unsettle & expand her notion of what mothering is; what it could be.

As she enters the sleeplessness, chaos and intimate discoveries of life with a newborn, these animal stories become Helens companions and guides. Revealing the deceits inherent in the vision of the natural mother the muted nursery walls of Instagram and the airbrushed images designed to sell her things she becomes increasingly compelled to explore where her own animality begins and ends, and to fathom how the stuff of human industry has come to influence life even from its very beginnings.

A passionate, visceral and radical account of a body changed, Mother Animal combines personal memoir with fresh insights from evolutionary biology, zoology and toxicology to reach through to questions that lie at the heart of what it means to be alive and a mother today.

Reviews

Magnificent, utterly refreshing, captivating... I was electrified by Jukes' gimlet-eyed telling of her own experience of new motherhood and the stories of parenting and nesting and birthing from our natural world ... So vital, tender, and alive.' LUCY JONES, author of Matrescence

'This book is a truly radical and astounding shout for community and care not only within our own species but the entire world. Read it to feel the slow detonation of mind-blowing understanding. DAISY JOHNSON, author of Sisters

'Mother Animalwrests motherhood from the clutches of the patriarchy and gently places it back into the hands of birthing bodies, human and non-human.SALLY HUBAND, author of Seabean

A deeply thoughtful interrogation of motherhood and the way it ties us to our natural (and not-so-natural) environment. LEAH HAZARD, author of Womb

With her startlingly clear prose Helen Jukes has created a tense masterpiece that blows societal ideas about parenthood wide open. To better understand ourselves as the animals that we are, we all need to read this book. MARCHELLE FARRELL, author of Uprooting

A tale of the turning-of-the-world told from the nesting home of a new mother, spanning from subterranean burrowing beetles, up into the trees, into the air and through oceans. So human and so vulnerable, tender, terrified and brave. HANNAH STOWE, author of Move Like Water

You simply must hear what [Helen Jukes] has to say. It will change you. CHARLES FOSTER, author ofCry of the Wild

Author Bio

Helen Jukes is a writer, writing tutor and beekeeper. Her writing has appeared in manypublications, includingCaught by the River, BBC Wildlife, Resurgence, the Junket and LITRO. She tutors on the creative writing programme at Oxford University, and also works with the Bee Friendly Trust, a London-based charity founded by beekeeper Luke Dixon to promote our understanding of honeybees and help nurture sustainable habitats. She lives in the Wye Valley. www.helenjukes.com