Television for Women

A Novel

De: Danit Brown

Narrado por: Kelli Tager

For fans of Nightbitch, a darkly humorous debut novel asks what happens when motherhood isn’t all it’s cracked up to be....

Estie isn’t sure she likes being eight months pregnant. She isn’t even sure she likes her husband anymore, especially after he hid that he’s been fired from his job. Hello parenthood! Goodbye life as Estie imagined it! Now, she’s stranded and bloated and alone. Her cat is not a people person, and on top of it all, her best friend has been ignoring her calls ever since Estie told her about the baby.

After Estie gives birth, she begins to suspect that all the stories she’s been told about motherhood might not be true. Having a child does not “complete” her. And that mythical connection with her baby? Well, she’s still waiting. In fact, Estie fears she is destined to end up like her own mother—divorced and crying in the bathroom while her daughter stands outside the door and wonders if she’s okay.

Startlingly honest and unsentimental, Television for Women explores the realities of life postpartum, the demands children make on women’s identities and relationships—and the desperate lengths someone might go to in order to reclaim the person she once was.

©2024 Danit Brown (P)2024 Blackstone Publishing

We Need More Stories Like This

I'm not sure how I even came across this offering, particularly since it doesn't appear to have any prior listens, but I'm glad I did. The story is well written and well narrated, but more importantly, one we don't often get to hear.

Until recently, very few authors were writing about women who were struggling with motherhood. The protagonist is not only suffering from postpartum depression, she's also a woman who has fallen victim to society's expectations of her at the expense of her own identity and happiness. What I mean by this, is that the protagonist is one of those women who marries and becomes pregnant not because it's something she wants, but because she thinks she is supposed to. It becomes clear that not only is this the wrong reason for having a child, but that the main character is nowhere near mature enough to be parenting anyone.

Had a novel like this one existed when the protagonist was younger, would she have become a mother? As the novel illustrates, not everyone is cut out for motherhood. To be clear, this book isn't anti-motherhood. The protagonist has a friend who is child-free by choice, and a friend who is currently pregnant and eager to become a mother. In both cases, the characters are secure in who they are and what they want. The author's message seems to be that either choice of becoming a mother or not is the right choice, as long as it is something the woman wants. It is when a woman agrees to become a mother without thought to what that actually entails, and whether or not she is actually ready for it or wants it, that everyone suffers as a result.