This Is a Story About Your Mother

In her latest collection, Louise Wallace raises an existential eyebrow at pregnancy-birth-motherhood. Is this universal rite-of-passage really an intimately personal event, down to the degree of fluid rising in your ankles, or is it a societal machine, forever churning out the next generation to an unrelenting voiceover of parenting advice? Wrestling auto-generated Huggies text and her own sometimes heart-breaking experiences into meaning, Wallace weighs the evidence. With equal parts curiosity