A very richly interesting exploration of a complex subject. Begoña Gómez Urzaiz tells the stories of all these different women with such intelligence and wit and generosity.--Tessa Hadley, author of After the Funeral and Free Love

Self-interrogative, intricately perceptive . . . [The Abandoners is] about the impossibility, pleasure, and torture embedded in motherhood.--Jia Tolentino, author of Trick Mirror: Reflections on Self-Delusion

A pivotal contribution to the ongoing conversations surrounding motherhood. . . . [G]enerous and rigorous.--Michele Filgate, editor of What My Mother and I Don't Talk About

Luminous and insightful. . . . Probably the best book I've read on the implications of motherhood and its opposites after Sheila Heti's Motherhood.--Claudia Durastanti, author of Strangers I Know

I suspect there are many, many other mothers... who are going to inhale The Abandoners. I know I did.--Gaby Hinsliff "The Guardian"

Relatable, wise, surprising, and sometimes even humorous essays about women--famous and not--who in one way or another escaped the bonds of motherhood...Anyone trying to be a good mother and also a creative, free, self-contained person will feel seen.--Annie Bostrom "Booklist"

Ms. Gómez Urzaiz tells the stories of these women with empathy for the protagonists, as we might call them, and for those their actions collaterally damaged.--Meghan Cox Gurdon "Wall Street Journal"

Insightful...By adding nuance to these women's stories, Gómez isn't letting them off the hook. In the end, the book's job isn't to convince readers to forgive these women but to offer, with immersive storytelling, a look into the complicated nature of motherhood, the desire to break free from precarious relationships, and the paradoxes of modern feminism.-- "Oprah Daily"

Engaging...incisive...As a mother of two sons, struggling to keep up a career as a freelance journalist, Gómez Urzaiz is forthright about the demands of motherhood...Perceptive, compassionate portraits.-- "Kirkus Reviews"

This year, the literary world couldn't stop talking about the impossible tension between motherhood and artistic ambition. But nowhere have I seen mention of what remains an ultimate taboo: a mother who, as Begoña Gómez Urzaiz writes, "for a time, wants to act like she isn't one." The Abandoners explores the stories of real women like Muriel Spark, as well as fictional characters like Anna Karenina, who decided that they would not sacrifice themselves wholly for their children. In focusing on extreme stories, the collection illuminates how our fears of "monstrous" mothers speak to the judgments we make about all women's choices.--Kristen Martin "NPR"

Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company

Pub date: 2024-11-12

Length: 256 pages