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The Unfamiliar

A Queer Motherhood Memoir
  • Author
    • Kirsty Logan
Format
Regular price £10.99
Regular price Sale price £10.99
SHORTLISTED FOR THE SALTIRE SOCIETY SCOTTISH BOOK OF THE YEAR AWARD

An unconventional, unexpectedly funny, brutally honest memoir about infertility, pregnancy and motherhood

'You and your partner want a baby. But your two bodies can't make a baby together.'

If you want a baby but your body says otherwise -
If you don't know the polite way to say thank you for the sperm -
If you're waiting for the sound of a brand-new heartbeat -
If you know it takes a village to raise a baby but have no idea who should be doing what -

If you're lurching between bliss and bewilderment -
If you don't fit the shape of what you've been told a mother should be -
Reach for The Unfamiliar and don't let go.

Moving and immersive, and written with wisdom, disarming humour and raw honesty, The Unfamiliar casts a fresh eye on motherhood and challenges our assumptions about pregnancy, gender roles, queer identity and what it means to be a parent.

Not available for shipping to the following countries:

  • ASM
  • CAN
  • GUM
  • MNP
  • UMI
  • FSM
  • MHL
  • PHL
  • PRI
  • USA
  • VIR
  • Published: Jun 06 2024
  • 198 x 128mm
  • ISBN: 9780349016580
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Press Reviews

  • Marianne Levy, author of Don't Forget to Scream
    What a book this is, probing gender roles and expectation, identity and desire. Luminous writing captures the uncertainty, the fear, the sheer physicality of love. It is wonderful
  • Laura Dockrill, author of What Have I Done?
    Cold, hard, raw writing that somehow sets your heart on fire. I could not put it down
  • Pragya Agarwal, author of (M)otherhood
    Such a fierce, honest, beautifully written account of love, and queer motherhood. I found it very moving. Logan manages to bring the tiniest detail in kaleidoscopic detail for the reader, but in such precise poetic prose. A marvel
  • Doireann Ní Ghríofa, author of A Ghost in the Throat
    When pregnancy grabs hold of a body it uses it to tell a very old story, but The Unfamiliar insists on a telling that is vibrantly new. The result is a book of desire, of bewilderment, of joy, of grief, and of love. Kirsty Logan writes with bright wit and wonder - I read this book in awe
  • Kate Maxwell, author of Hush
    I loved The Unfamiliar - a courageous and sharply written account of a meandering journey to motherhood and all the emotional and physical struggles it entails. Funny and intensely moving, with the most vivid description of birth I've ever read
  • Lotte Jeffs

    Guardian
    Searingly honest. There is something inherently strange about nurturing a person inside your body and then giving birth to it ... Logan does an excellent job of portraying the reality - the beauty and the horror of it