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A haunting, indelible novel of collective grief, resistance, and the radical, life-affirming virtue of testimony.
A. is an amateur translator, living alone in an unforgiving, late-capitalist metropolis. Adrift and burdened by debt following a medical trauma, she makes rent caring for a young boy who is not and could never be her own. Her nights are spent on the dance floor, chasing spontaneous connection. There, she encounters N., who shares her numbed state and sometimes her bed.
Among N.'s meager possessions, A. comes across a slim book about an unnamed foreign town of disappearing boys. The book, Field Notes, documents the stories of a community of mothers who assemble to mourn their missing sons together. A. is transfixed by this collective chorus of primal grief, the mothers' preternatural strength, and their intuitive care for one another. When a near-assault stuns A. out of her inertia, she takes off for the city where Field Notes was written in search of its author and the end of the story. But A.'s digging leads her instead to the traces of a murdered poet, a mysterious woman whose legacy will intersect unexpectedly and pivotally with A.'s own life.
Poignant and profoundly humane, Mass Mothering is told through layered voices, written fragments, and recorded testimonies. It is a luminous story of the mutuality of grief, the aftershocks of violence in a globalized era, and the world-bending force of a mother's love.
"Layered and moving, this one hits with startling force." —Publishers Weekly (starred review)
"In a fragmented, braided style reminiscent of Jenny Offill's Dept. of Speculation (2014), Bruni weaves together explorations of language, borders, and belonging, as well as of the precarious and frequently terrifying state of motherhood. The result is a deeply intelligent, prismatic look at the personal and political facets of maternal care. A truly original entry into the growing canon of motherhood novels." —Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
"The prose is written as if between waking and sleep, illuminating the heart of motherhood... and highlights the transformative power of shared trauma and community. Bruni's second novel... serves as an oracle in the wake of historical events, offering guidance through our most primal source of comfort—mothers." —Booklist (starred review)
"Bruni beautifully captures how language, culture, trauma, and privilege create barriers between people, even as they strive to connect... A timely yet timeless tale about the power of community and the importance of mothers in the face of grief and systematic oppression; will resonate with readers long after the last page." —Library Journal (starred review)
"Mass Mothering is a deft and beautiful novel, a masterwork for post-empire American literature. Following a translator who discovers a posthumous and unfinished book based on the recorded testimonies of mothers grieving the disappearance of their boys, Sarah Bruni invites us to a journey akin to translating memory itself. In graceful and atmospheric prose, she has created an essential novel for our times, one in which the ability to separate truths is both an act of struggle and defiance. A heart wrenching, tenacious, and radical accomplishment." ―Michael Zapata, author of The Lost Book of Adana Moreau
"Different mysteries coalesce: Who is the author of an unfinished book about disappeared sons? Where have they gone? And why do the mothers continue to take care of their children even when they are gone? Mass Mothering is a beautiful novel about the importance of really seeing―that is, the pain of bearing witness." ―Yuri Herrera, author of Season of the Swamp
"Mass Mothering, set in an unnamed country and narrated by an unnamed woman, nonetheless gives precise names to a variety of losses―of vanished sons and never-to-exist children, of a state's refuge, of grieving mothers and one witness. Sarah Bruni has written an exquisite, wrenching novel." ―Teddy Wayne, author of The Winner
This information about Mass Mothering was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Sarah Bruni is a graduate of the MFA program at Washington University in St. Louis and holds a master's in Latin American studies from Tulane University. She has taught English and writing classes in New York and St. Louis, and she has volunteered as a writer-in-schools in San Francisco and Montevideo, Uruguay. She is also the author of the novel The Night Gwen Stacy Died. Her fiction has appeared in Boston Review, and her translations have appeared in the Buenos Aires Review. She lives in Chicago with her family.
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