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Critics' Opinion:
Readers' Opinion:
First Published:
Apr 2021, 384 pages
Paperback:
Apr 2022, 384 pages
Book Reviewed by:
Norah Piehl
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A deeply moving novel about a woman who thought she never wanted to be a mother--and the many ways that life can surprise us.
In every woman there are many stories...
Rose Napolitano is fighting with her husband, Luke, about prenatal vitamins. She promised she'd take them, but didn't. He promised before they got married that he'd never want children, but now he's changed his mind. Their marriage has come to rest on this one question: Can Rose find it in herself to become a mother? Rose is a successful professor and academic. She's never wanted to have a child. The fight ends, and with it their marriage.
But then, Rose has a fight with Luke about the vitamins--again. This time the fight goes slightly differently, and so does Rose's future as she grapples with whether she can indeed give up the one thing she thought she knew about herself. Can she reimagine her life in a completely new way? That reimagining plays out again and again in each of Rose's nine lives, just as it does for each of us as we grow into adulthood. What are the consequences of our biggest choices? How would life change if we let go of our preconceived ideas of ourselves and became someone completely new? Rose Napolitano's experience of choosing and then choosing again shows us in an utterly compelling way what it means, literally, to reinvent a life and, sometimes, become a different kind of woman than we ever imagined.
A stunning novel about love, loss, betrayal, divorce, death, a woman's career and her identity, The Nine Lives of Rose Napolitano is about finding one's way into a future that wasn't the future one planned, and the ways that fate intercedes when we least expect it.
MARCH 2, 2008
Rose, Life 3
She is beautiful.
I am awed by her perfection. The heady scent of her skin. "Addie," I sigh. "Adelaide," I try again, a faint whisper in the sterile air. "Adelaide Luz."
I raise her little head to my nose and inhale, long and needy, ignoring the sharp pain in my abdomen. I smile as I admire the soft fuzz of her hair.
How I resisted having this little being in my arms! Before the pregnancy and the birth, I would rage about the pressure to have a child— to Luke, to Mom, to Jill, to whoever would listen. The stranger next to me on the subway, the unsuspecting man on the sidewalk. I was just. So. Angry.
But now?
The snow falls in wet clumps against the windowpanes of the hospital room, everything around me shades of gray in dim light. I inch to the left, shift into a better position. The temperature drops and the snow turns papery, thick and dry like paste. She sleeps.
My eyes are hers.
"How could I not have wanted you?" I whisper into her tiny, curling ear...
In addition to being a reflection on the complexities of relationships, Freitas's novel is an elegant exploration of what might be called fate. While exploring Rose's attitudes toward her potential future(s) as a mother, The Nine Lives of Rose Napolitano examines her relationship with her own mother and the identities of women in general. Rose's role as a daughter comes to affect the way she conceives of her other identities, such as her professional role as a sociologist—an occupation Freitas, whose background is in sociology and religious studies, knows something about. Rose's personal life inspires and informs her research, and her academic knowledge affects how she understands and analyzes the patterns of her life and those of women like her...continued
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(Reviewed by Norah Piehl).
Claire Lombardo, New York Times bestselling author of The Most Fun We Ever Had
Ambitious, compelling, and provocative, The Nine Lives of Rose Napolitano delves deep into love, motherhood, and the complicated dance that is navigating the world as a woman—its intricate structure kept me turning pages and the questions posed therein kept me awake at night.- Linda Holmes, host of NPR's Pop Culture Happy Hour and New York Times bestselling author of Evvie Drake Starts Over
A structurally ambitious, deeply thoughtful and even-handed consideration of many of the most complex decisions women make about their families and futures—not to mention a generally wise meditation on the control we all do and don't have over our fates.Over the past couple of decades, it's become more socially acceptable to talk and to write about the complexities of motherhood. It's also become less taboo to acknowledge—as Rose does in The Nine Lives of Rose Napolitano by Donna Freitas—that motherhood is not the right choice for every woman. The following books articulate, in different ways, the ambivalence or unease many women feel toward the prospect of becoming mothers.
The Fifth Child by Doris Lessing
This novel of Lessing's, first published in 1988 and set in the late 1960s, is a work of literary horror. Two conservative parents have created a haven of domestic bliss in opposition to the social unrest unfolding in the wider world. But their feelings of smug ...
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