Still Born: Guadalupe Nettel

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Bottom line: I love to write. Thankfully, my family puts up with it. The very act of creating something that might be slightly askew keeps me going. I'm drawn to dark fiction where I find an appreciation for the light. Horror, thrillers, suspense. Things that make you question your own reality or open your mind to look at the world a little differently than you might have before. She was going to be a successful grade 1 teacher and Habu a famous medical doctor, like the white man in the village mission hospital. The image of a big European house full of houseboys and maids Rose before her. Li smiled to herself. The bushy stream, the thorny Hillside and the dusty Market would soon be forgotten, in the past." p.55 I gave this four on finishing but I've dropped it to three. This is a good book that primarily explores childhood and motherhood. Of the latter, particularly difficult motherhood, that of disabled/violent children. Nettel's prose is unassuming but powerful at times. I found using the pigeons and their nest as a thematic addition to the plot a little too... obvious? The two storylines were enough for me. I think her reflecting parenthood again in the birds on her roof was a little overkill, and didn't really add much. I had heard this was probably going to make it on the longlist and planned to read it before it dropped but didn't get around to it, but hey, it did show up after all as I heard it would, as did Time Shelter. Fitzcarraldo continue to dominate.

Still Bornis a startling novel about whatever it is that drives adults to take care of children, and all the many things that make that care painful and sometimes impossible. There is a quiet force to the poised and deliberate writing. The novel is a deep exploration of affection and vulnerability.’ In Still Born, Guadalupe Nettel renders with great veracity life as it is encountered in the everyday, taking us to the heart of the only things that really matter: life, death and our relationships with others. All of these are contained in the experience of motherhood, which this novel explores and deepens.’ Gardosi J, Madurasinghe V, Williams M, Malik A, Francis A. Maternal and fetal risk factors for stillbirth: population based study. BMJ. 2013;346. doi: 10.1136/bmj.f108 When interviewed by The Booker Prizes, Nettel detailed how Still Born was based on the story of a friend and her daughter: ‘Every day, children are born with neurological conditions that set them apart from others. Their families often take these situations as misfortunes that will end forever the life they had and turn it into hell. I wanted to show, through the story of this friend of mine, that it is possible to transform this painful experience into a meaningful one.’ Do you think the author succeeded here? Did you find beauty in Alina’s experience when her daughter Inés was born with micro lissencephaly? Did it feel true to life? Nettel is known for her psychologically complex characters. Discuss the protagonist’s emotional journey and the ways in which she navigates her internal struggles in the novel.

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Still Born is Nettel’s fourth novel, wonderfully translated by Rosalind Harvey and due for release on 22nd June with Fitzcarraldo Editions (A big thank-you to Clare at Fitzcarraldo Editions for the ARC). Nettel is free. She has succeeded in creating an audacious narrative style all her own, a singular and fearless way of being in the world. An essential voice of the new Latin American literature.’ Alina and Laura are friends, after many attempts of trying with her husband Alina is finally pregnant, while Laura moves into a new flat. Inadvertently, even Laura thinks she not really equipped for motherhood, she forms a bond with the next door neighbour’s son. Meanwhile Alina, going through the trials of pregnancy, learns that her child will have a brain defect and may die upon birth, something which changes her perspective towards life and her relationship with both her husband and Laura (as to be expected). Alina does give birth, and a successful one but I don’t think it’s right to tell the outcome as the book goes into more interesting territories after. Unrecognized fetal growth restriction, where it is not identified that the fetus is small for its age

Tres mujeres protagonistas que viven la maternidad de forma diferente, tres mujeres que tienen personalidad y situaciones personales completamente distintas. I’ve got good news,’ she told me, ‘and I wanted you to be the first to know.’ She didn’t need to explain any further. I had known her for years and it was enough to hear her tone of voice to know what she was going to tell me. When eventually she pronounced the word ‘pregnant’, my heart leapt in a feeling so close to joy that it threw me. How on earth could I be rejoicing? Alina was about to disappear and join the sect of mothers, those creatures with no life of their own who, zombie- like, with huge bags under their eyes, lugged prams around the streets of the city. In less than a year she would be transformed into a child-rearing automaton. The friend I had always counted on would vanish for good, and here I was, at the other end of the line, congratulating her? I have to admit that hearing her sound so contented was infectious. Although throughout my life I had militated against my sex carrying such a burden, I decided not to wage war against this happiness. The friend’s tale is readable and tense, as her fetus is disabled, she carries to term in the belief that the baby won’t live, but then the baby does live, effectively changing all the ground rules of expectant motherhood. Alina, the mother, is allowed a full range of reactions to this situation, from grief and idealization of the baby-to-be, to despair afterwards, hope that the baby will die, reconciliation to loving such a frail creature. . This is certainly the book’s strongest section, though I wasn’t universally enchanted – a subplot with the nanny seemed unconvincing. I read Still Born in less than a day. It is perfect: deeply feminist, wise, funny and alive. Nettel is generous to each of her characters, and in prose that is crisp and light. I love this book.’ Tenemos por un lado a Laura, la narradora, una mujer que no quiere ser madre, que lo tiene claro y decide ligarse las trompas, su mejor amiga que después de muchos intentos logra quedarse embarazada, y su vecina, que tiene una relación complicada con su hijo.

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Smoking, drinking alcohol, or use of illicit and/or medical drugs, which has been associated with double or even triple the risk of stillbirth

Guadalupe Nettel’s fourth novel Still Born, a storythat examines the lived experiences of womenand the decision of whether or not to have children, has been acquired by Fitzcarraldo Editions. Still Born is an astonishingly elegant, intelligent, affecting novel, which has stayed in my mind from the moment I began it to long after I finished. I felt a huge sense of relief that I had encountered a work of art about ambivalence in mothering which encompassed a true authentic range of emotions and curiosities – vanity, aggression, jealousy and selfishness – with sanguine acceptance, as well as the beautiful and difficult project of giving and sustaining love which marks all our lives, mothers or otherwise.’ It’s not the kids that annoy me altogether. I might even find it entertaining, watching them play in the park or tearing each other apart over some toy in the sandpit. They are living examples of how we could be as humans if the rules of etiquette and civility did not exist. For years, I tried to convince my girlfriends that procreating was a hopeless mistake. I told them that children, no matter how sweet and loving they were in their best moments, would always represent a limit on their freedom, an economic burden, not to mention the physical and emotional cost they bring about: nine months of pregnancy, another six or more of breast-feeding, frequent sleepless nights during infancy, and then constant anxiety throughout their teenage years. ‘What’s more, society is designed so that it’s us, and not men, who take on the responsibility of caring for children, and this so often means forfeiting your career, your solo pursuits, your erotic side, and sometimes your relationship with your partner, too,’ I would tell them, vehemently. ‘Is it really worth it?’”Claire Potter is author of the poetry books, Swallow (Five Islands Press 2010), N’ombre (Vagabond 2007) and In Front of a Comma (Poets Union 2006). Her poetry has been widely published, and her poem “Ex-voto” on miscarriage and stillbirth was shortlisted for the Keats-Shelley Poetry Award 2017. She lives and works in London. We daughters have a tendency to see in our mother’s mistakes the source of all our problems, and our mothers tend to consider our defects as proof of a possible failure. So as to avoid conflict, I have, over the past few years, opted to not completely reveal what I am thinking, to hide my fondnesses and fears, becoming as unreadable as possible to escape the knife-edge of her comments, but it would never have occurred to me to dispense with her altogether.

Forse molti dei motivi per cui non mi sono trovata in questo romanzo e in queste riflessioni sono strettamente personali, può darsi, quindi non approfondirò ulteriormente. Sampey-Jawad said: "In prose that is as gripping as it is insightful, Guadalupe Nettel explores maternal ambivalence with a surgeon’s touch, carefully dissecting the contradictions that make up the lived experiences of women. Still Born treats one of the most consequential decisions of early adulthood – whether or not to have children – with the intelligence and originality that have won Nettel international acclaim, and we are thrilled to be welcoming her to Fitzcarraldo Editions." There is no word, however, for a parent who loses their child. Unlike previous centuries in which child mortality was very high, it’s not normal for this to occur in our time. It is something so feared, so unacceptable, that we have chosen not to name it’. Through quiet glimpses into these women’s lives, the impossible decisions they face, the various griefs that wash over them, and the bonds they forge, Nettel takes the reader through a journey of the many facets of womanhood and motherhood, child bearing and child rearing. Her restrained, crisp prose is so easy to read, and though this isn’t a plot-driven book, it held enough open questions to keep my attention. In many respects the novel is a gripping and powerful exploration of motherhood, and indeed of what it means to live.My writing career began in the third grade when tasked with an assignment to write about rain. I opted to tell the story of a raindrop who decided life wasn't worth living and leapt to his death only to discover that really he was being reborn. (You know that whole life-cycle thing). In the beginning, my intention was to write the story of my friend and her little daughter, which I’ve found incredibly inspiring, both terrible and beautiful at the same time. Every day, children are born with neurological conditions that set them apart from others. Their families often take these situations as misfortunes that will end forever the life they had and turn it into hell. I wanted to show, through the story of this friend of mine, that it is possible to transform this painful experience into a meaningful one. I love the setting of the novel, a small village in Northern Nigeria. It is a light hearted read, which discusses a lot of issues including feminism, love, chauvinism, loss, family. The main character Li, is definitely a true icon - smart, self willed even in those days where it was considered a crime for a woman, dedicated in pursuing her dreams, kind hearted and strong. Reading about her family dynamic from the beginning brought tears to my eyes. Her brother's disappearance, her sister's sadness and the overall feeling of being not able to pursue her dreams.