Loved and Wanted
A Memoir of Choice, Children, and Womanhood
by Christa Parravani
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Pub Date 10 Nov 2020 | Archive Date 17 Mar 2022
Bonnier Books UK | Manilla Press
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Description
'Haunting, wild, and quiet at once. A shimmering look at motherhood, in all gothic pain and glory. I could not stop reading' Lisa Taddeo, bestselling author of Three Women
A powerful account of one woman's reckoning with life, death and choice in Trump's America. For readers of Educated and Hillbilly Elegy.
'I want to see a doctor as soon as possible. For an abortion, please.' I was raw and scared.
The line went quiet for a moment. 'I don't know what you're talking about,' the receptionist said dryly. Then more forcefully. 'We don't do things like that here.'
In 2017 Christa Parravani had recently moved her family from California to West Virginia and was surviving on a teacher's salary and raising two young children with her husband, screenwriter Anthony Swofford.
Another pregnancy, a year after giving birth to her second child, came as a shock. Christa had a history of ectopic pregnancies, and worried that she wouldn't be able to find adequate medical care. She immediately requested a termination, but her doctor refused to help. The only doctor who would perform an abortion made it clear that this would be illicit, not condoned by her colleagues or their community.
Christa Parravani has crafted, through her own harrowing experiences with healthcare in contemporary America, a brilliant and moving exploration of the impossible choices women face.
Advance Praise
'Haunting, wild, and quiet at once. An shimmering look at motherhood, in all gothic pain and glory. I could not stop reading. ' Lisa Taddeo, author of Three Women
'Searing testimony from the frontlines of American womanhood. Her heartbreaking and inspiring story--of seeking abortion and safe childbirth, caring for husband and kids--lays bare a broken system that denies fundamental human rights to women who can't afford to pay for them' Kate Manning, author of My Notorious Life
'This book is a deceptively languid segment of the unending story of women forsaken by misogynistic cultures, religions, corporations, and governments. It is a book that accurately depicts-its brilliant metaphors glittering like diamonds-how much some Americans want women to suffer. Everyone should read this book.' Sarah Manguso, author of 300 Arguments and Ongoing
Marketing Plan
A Manilla Press Lead
Available Editions
| EDITION | Other Format |
| ISBN | 9781786580542 |
| PRICE | £14.99 (GBP) |
| PAGES | 272 |
Featured Reviews
Media/Journalist 220505
This is an incredible, painful, beautiful book about mothering and womanhood and navigating a patriarchal world with a female body.
I keep thinking about where Parravani writes of not addressing certain aspects of her relationship to spare her children's feelings and her concern about what her children, and especially her son, will think when they are old enough to read it. It is unusual to see these concerns addressed in a text in such a vulnerable way, without one shred of defensiveness. I hope they admire their mother for her courage..
It seems women can't fully inhabit their own lives once they become mothers. The pram in the hall is the enemy not of productivity but openness because something always has to be held back. I found this book all the more important because of this.
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