Overview

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 Helen’s 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.

Full Product Details

9781783968381

Table of Contents

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 a slow detonation of mind-blowing understanding.’ DAISY JOHNSON, author of Sisters 'Mother Animal wrests 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 of Cry of the Wild 

‘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.’ 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 ‘Unlike anything I've ever read. A tender and bewildered account of motherhood, and a powerful reflection on what it means to be alive in the Anthropocene.’ MICHAEL MALAY, author of Late Light ‘This beautiful exploration of pregnancy and motherhood brilliantly and powerfully explores and expands our understanding of the mother-nature / nature-mother space. By breaking down borders between human and animal ‘mothering’, this wonderful, profoundly personal journey in and out of self leaves us feeling at once wilder and, somehow, more human.’ ROB COWEN, author of The North Road and Common Ground ‘Mother Animal wrests motherhood from the clutches of patriarchy and gently places it back into the hands of birthing bodies, human and non-human.’ SALLY HUBAND, author of Seabean ‘With an emotional precision, Jukes stitches human and animal lives into a vivid tapestry that is as moving as it is illuminating. I found solace in connecting to my animal self. A book to devour.’ JOANNA WOLFARTH, author of Milk: An Intimate History of Breastfeeding ‘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 of Cry of the Wild   ‘Mother Animal is [an] evidenced, coherent and passionate plea to revalue and celebrate motherhood in the light of how the whole process works in the real world’ New Scientist ‘As tense as it is electrifying … an honest and unflinching portrayal of the transition to motherhood and the way it reshapes not just your life, but your sense of self.’ Stylist ‘Helen Jukes outlines the astonishing and often brutal truth about birth in the animal kingdom … truly astonishing facts about animal fertility, gathered by a woman who has clearly done her research’ The Sunday Times   ‘Joyful and expansive’ Guardian   ‘A profound and uninhibited exploration of motherhood, cleverly captured, and wonderfully written.’  LoveReading   ‘[Jukes] captures beautifully the eeriness of new motherhood, and its intensity.’ Daily Mail 'Intimate and personal' Nature 'A memoir of pregnancy and birth and an unforgettably visceral exploration of the physical transformations of motherhood.' In Haste podcast ‘A vulnerable, urgent, astonishing book’ Resurgence & Ecologist 

Author Information

Helen Jukes is a writer, writing tutor and beekeeper. Her writing has appeared in many publications, including Caught 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  

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